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.

If making spag bol I replace half the meat with grated carrot - it takes on the texture of the meat - cheaper and healthier and I give it to my Italian husband and my mil and they have noooooo idea.

Bring pasta to boil - switch off - it will cook with no heat in 20 min..Clothesswap parties .swap shop type sites- in our locality we can swap things with eachother via a web site.baby sitting circle - no child care costs.

Car boot sales - I hear the weather this weekend is going to be perfect for these and a great way to sell items quick!

Try cheap tins of tomatoes, fry some onions, add some garlic and herbs, heat together and blitz. Fed 5 with two tins of tomatoes ... approx £1 for all of us

Make friends with your Freezer.

I make double of everything and freeze the rest, flat on a tray in freezer bags. When it is frozen i remove the tray so then i have lots of perfectly stackable meals.

I also made a huge batch (16) Nan breads (so easy) cooked them and froze them individually.

I brought steam bags of veg when they are bogof so now i wake up gets 4 meals and 4 Nans out the freezer, warm up in the microwave when we get in after school/work, steam some veg and voila a healthy quick meal in literally minutes.

Freezing things flat makes them defrost so much quicker and they stack so you can store tons in your freezer.

I also do soup, i think Spit Pea works out at about 30p per serving, i also freeze individual tablespoons of Pesto to swirl in my soup as and when needed.

Marking my place for later

Always buy the bags of reduced veggies in the supermarkets and make soup to freeze.

YY to the oil based cleansing.

For those on an old electric immersion like me and sadly with no dishwasher, an old thermos with the dregs of the kettle each time poured in each time you boil will do the lunch/breakfast washing up without having to heat any water.

Do supper, not dinner a few times a week. Eggs or beans on toast is a perfectly balanced meal as long as you've had enough fresh fruit or veg in earlier meals.

Stop buying cleaning products right now, they're only killing you anyway [hgrin]. Vinegar and tea tree will do just about everything, a couple of MF cloths and some old t-shirts for cloths/rags and you're set.

Those of you who freeze in bulk- how big is your freezer and where is it. We have 3 drawers and they are always full with stuff such as ice cream,bread,chips etc

I used to have on of the freeze-a-body huge chest freezers for whole sheep, 6 months worth of garden veg etc but they're only economical to run if you're really filling them.

I have a second hand zanussi fridge freezer and I am fussy, I have to have the fridge on top and the freezer has to be bigger than the fridge section. Seems logical to me but not it seems to everyone else. So I have 4 drawers which is fine but there's no room for bulky stuff really. Rotating is the key I think, and freezing in small packages.

4 drawers fine for me and DD. Not so much for a big family praps.

onadietcokebreak i would think tactically about freezing, i.e. worry less about freezing cheaper stuff like bread and using the space for reduced meat and bulk meals.

We are a family of 3 or 5 or even 2 depending in which children are with us.

Tiny 2 bed swing a cat new build and no room 4 additional freezer. It will be a requirement that when we finally move I get a garage with freezer!

About to batch cook spag bol-wish me luck

That's a good point about bread. It's normally just one loaf and sometimes 2. It's just they are on offer and we always run out. I just can't be trusted to pop in for just bread -will have to entrust d p with task

Make a list of all your monthly outgoigns and decide what you cannot live without, allow for some treats.
Dylon dye old clothes and Jeans to give them a new lease of life.
Car boots are fantastic, haggle and decide what you want to buy before you go. Otherwise you end up spending a lot on things you didn't need or want

liking the no poo method - going to try that.

re the eco balls - i tried them - no match for either dh's work stuff or dd's sick/breastmilk sadly so i have gone back to ecover.

get the loyalty card for all the shops you use and try and get the point taken off your bill every time - boots will let you do this if the points amount to a whole item so i end up with free deoderant most of the time. dh waves his nectar card every time his work van fills up and we have about £100 in nectar point now.

think about what you can grow where you live. we live in a top floor flat but its full of glass and v warm in the summer so i grow tomoatoes indoors - we had our best ever yield this year with gardeners delight plats which were up to the ceiling! i loved givng them to dd straight from the vine too! herbs are easy to grow too.

have a look at penny golightly she is a genius at money saving and smart spending :-)

Did you know that you can make tax-free money from renting out your spare room?
With this in mind, I have just started a website called Head2Pillow.com for short-term room rental in the London area. Anyone with a spare room can rent it out when it suits them, with no sign-up fees.
I'd be grateful for any comments on this...

I hardly iron anything, I take stuff out of machine as soon as finishes and shake and hang on dryer. I have never had or used a tumble dryer, nor do I use fabric conditioner. I can assure you I don't smell or look creased! I buy quite a lot of secondhand clothes and also books. Get free make up samples from large dept stores. Shoes come off at the door, saves carpets ( sound like my gran) lot less hoovering.

swapping your clothes and children's stuff with friends may work.

Fran18 - loving your website - think its a fantastic idea!

What about your fruit and veg? Find this v expensive but without it not going to be healthy

Mend your clothes instead of not wearing them because there's a button missing/seam has gone etc. Sit down one evening with a film and just do it.

Aside from the other things like insulating and tactical shopping etc, I found the best thing to do is to plan to spend NO money on ANYTHING that you don't need. There are so many things that people buy 'just because' that are simply not necessary. For a time we had no magazines, no new books, no new clothes unless absolutely necessary, no bits and pieces just because we were passing a shop...if we went out, we went with a picnic, an old water bottle filled with juice, a flask, to save money on the coffee-and-cake habit...we didn't have holidays either.

There were threads on here about a book called 'Not Buying It', which was quite inspiring really. (A woman decides not to purchase anything except bare necessities for a year.) Partly it's a shift in your perception of what is a normal purchase.

If you have a large freezer and it's only half full it is wasting energy trying to keep the empty space cold,to combat this get a large box,fill with scrunched up carrier bags or similar and place in freezer.

look at your wardrobe apparently we wear only 20% of it most of the time why are we not wearing the rest if no good reason to keep sell!!! though second hand clothes dont raise much money,
instead of buying magazines at £3 a go buy a sunday paper they have enough magazines included to last all week
invite friends for coffee rather than meet at starbucks or whatever!
look at all the free entertainment around so many museums have things on fior free on saturday afternoons etc
be ruthless take your own snacks for after swimming etc
my parents had much less than average money when we were growing up they told us they could not afford it, after a moan kids can accpet that, we all weent to uni and then got good jobs it was good training i left uni with no debt managed on grant
now SAHM and gone back to economic living are managing on less than 1000 a month now including mortgage which I will admit is small
eat seasonally what is in season is always cheaper and tastes better from not having come 7000 miles
old fashioned sponge puddings bread and butter pudding fill you up cheaply porridge is a great breakfast

Swishing parties are fab - grab the clothes that you know you will never wear again at the bottom of your wardrobe, and get a bunch of friends to come over and do the same. You get to swap your unwanted stuff and may really like someone elses cast offs. You can update your wardrobe for free and declutter plus have wine and nibbles and a girly night in!

Swishing also works for baby / childrens' toys.

Make your own pasta sauce by frying onions garlic and whatever vegetables are lurking in the salad crisper, on the verge of turning - mushrooms, carrot, aubergine, squash, pumpkin. Pop in a big pot to boil with a couple of cans of cheap chopped tomatoes and then blitz in a food processor with a spoon or two of cream cheese for a creamier texture.

I freeze it in weaning pots 2 litres at a time as toddler ready meals - just cook pasta, defrost and go, but it is tasty enough for adults and older children too - and is hidden veg.

If you have a baby or toddler buy a bath dam - uses half the water of a bath.

If you have an older baby or toddler make sleepsuits go 2 - 3 days if they don't have stains on them - saves around one load of washing every 3 weeks.

I have a spreadsheet which shows me where every penny goes so I know what I can save money on.

I don't own a car. Walking and cycling is much healthier, better and so much cheaper.

I have a present box (for storage)so when I see toys and gifts on special offer I can buy them and squirrel them away for Christmas and birthdays. All of next years cards/wrapping paper/crackers goes in here bought in the January sales. I also bulk buy birthday cards and always have a good supply.

I changed my energy supplier and seem to be paying a lot less (Southern Electric). I also never pay by direct debit and pay the bill at the last minute (makes me look poorer) as I heard energy companies base your bills on what they think you can afford to pay.

I do most of my shopping in Aldis and buy everything else when its on speacial offer. If its not reduced or bogof I don't buy it generally.

Never pay anyone to do anything I can do myself.

I hardly use the phone, either I see friends or I use the internet as its free. I don't have a contracted mobile - far too expensive.

I use half the recommended amount of everything.

Carboots sales are the best places for toys/books/clothes etc.