Ways a to save money around the home now we are all tightening our belts

[bronze]

I am pretty much a tightwad, mainly down to needs must but I find these threads with people ideas always have at least one new thing for me to try. So I though I would start one

My latest is I am now consistently making my own bread. I worked out I could save about £90 over three months so bought a bread maker with the last of my birthday/christmas money.
We have a fresh loaf every day, a lot less waste and it tastes far nicer not to mention being cheaper

Good idea bronze.

Switching to the oil cleansing method for my skin must save me £50 a year at least - and my skin looks so much better.

Thanks for the link!

To help save money I have joined a website that sends me a weekly email on what offers are on that week. Has been quite helpful so far.

When I cook I tend to do extra and freeze so we get 2 full meals.

I try to plan meals and buy ingredients that can be used for a few different dishes. The idea is that I don't overspend at the supermarket and there is less waste from what I do buy.

I bulk buy nappies and always look out for special offers.

Every few months I go through a bank statement to ensure all direct debits are up to date and I am not paying for things I should't be.

I shop around for everything I can to get the best price. Insurance and holidays I always get hundreds off the first quote.

care to share the website?

agree keeping on top of finances really does help. Don't carry on maying that dd you know longer have use of

I love the bread idea. We easily go through a loaf a day so could well be worth investing. How long does it take and is it difficult to make?

so easy to make
length of time depends on type etc I make a french loaf style but that type takes 6 hours. I set mine to go overnight
I would recommend trying to find the money for a panasonic as the difference is incredible. I know its a fair bit to pay out if you're skint but the savings start pretty quickly. I wouldn't have doen it if I hadn't had my birthday money but I'm very glad I did.

Of course. Its money saving expert I think. There is a box to put your email in and one is sent every week. It lets you know sales and 2 for 1 etc too. Its free to join.

go on freecycle and see if anyone has any gardening pots / seeds for veg. You don't need much space for a decent crop of raspberries / runners / potatoes.

We were self suffcient in raspberries for about a month last summer (the patch is only about 1m x 1m), even the birds got fed up with them and they didn't need netting.

I agree about space. I had a nice crop on my windowsill once. Was trying to find a pic

Dont buy freezer bags, re-use ice cream tubs or big yoghurt tubs.

Get home made pizza down to a fine art - you can make it from scratch in around 1 hour (well I can anyway, other people may be faster!)

this might work shoping windowsill growing

ahh no nevermind

Google martin lewis for money off coupons and offers - hot deals are also good.

Pricechecker.com are good as you can put the shopping list in and work out which is the cheapest shop to go to.

So how long does it take to prepare the ingredients to go into the bread maker? I've considered this before but been put off by the amount of time it might take.

It takes me two minutes
my normal loaf is 5 ingredients and only two need to be weighed (or guessed if youre good enough). Flour yeast salt butter water

You know the tablet style washing detergents like Persil? The instructions always say to use 2 tablets per wash...

Well I only use one...

You can reuse a lot of plastic pots that we recycle for planting in - just make holes in the bottom of them.

I would like a breadmaker, it seems like a good idea to save money

MoneySavingExpert is good, they have forums as well though I tend to spend more time here these days. The Old Style part of the forum is great though (basically like the good housekeeping/food section here) and they have a really useful index thread thing at the top which is clunky in that you end up with about 7 tabs open, but because new threads get merged with similar old ones it keeps all advice in one place and saves searching.

eat seasonally

no flaming here I use washballs for darks and half cheap powder half soda crystals for whites/lights

growing on windowsill link attempt two

Try an old Yorkshire technique to make your sunday joint smaller/cheaper/last longer...
Serve yorkshire pudding with gravy before you have your meat and veg (kind of like a starter). By the time you have your meat you'll already be stuffed with pudding.

draw out a set amount of cash every week for shopping rather than using a card. It's easier to save money if you can actually see how much money you're spending, which generally doesn't happen when you're spending on a card.

Look at what you're spending - are you buying branded or own-brand products? Some branded I won't compromise on but some own brand such as breakfast cereals and cleaning products are just as good/effective and signifficantly cheaper.

Look at the prices of what you're buying, e.g. a bottle of ribena blackcurrent costs nearly £3 a bottle whereas robbinsons is around £1.25.

Make your own bread/cakes/biscuits. You don't need a breadmaker, if you get a mixer with dough hooks it's just as easy to make, you just have to get the dough in/out/put it in the tin etc but it really isn't that much extra work.

In fact I ditched my breadmaker in favour of my food mixer.

have a look here for windowsill gardening and other money saving stuff.

meanwhile i am all to hell with economic food shopping. dh goes away at a moments notice and things dont get eaten before they go off. i have a tiny freezer too which makes it even harder :-(

We make our own bread (when I say we, I mean DH) with a food mixer. We reckon we are saving £7 a week doing this.

We have planted veg and reuse pots and tins for planting seedlings.

Charity shops for books and the library is good.

I now do not visit coffee shops, buy magazines or newspapers.

The basic brands in supermarkets can be surprisingly good. The only things that seem crap is basic tea and coffee.

I cook most things from scratch which I think saves lots of money.

I've started making my own bread, don't have a bread maker by doing it the old fashioned way. I can't believe how easy it is, not only are we making a saving but also having a better variety of bread.

Growing veg and salad at the moment so hopefully will reap the rewards later this season.

Food we meal plan and mostly eat home cooked food.

Housecleaning products I either try buy Ecover products in bulk or just use basic soap and water to do the cleaning we honestly don't need the amount of bleach, chemical anti-bac crap.

Trying to use the car less saving on petrol.

Trying to use less electricity too for example we got rid of the tumble dryer ages ago and haven't missed it.
Dishwasher only goes on when full every other day, I wash up mugs and breakfast dishes.
The washing machine only goes on full and I try to stick to 2 white washes one of these is towels and bedding as I only have white linen and towels, 1 dark and 1 color wash a week. By only washing what we need for that week. I also occasionally do a hand wash.

Heating generally only goes on from Nov-Jan if it's chilly we put on a jumper and wool socks. If in the evening we are sitting reading or watching TV then we all have our own blankets to cosy up in.

Library for books, I browse in waterstone and then pop in the library and order the books - this has saved me £42 this year.

charity shops, free cycle, and work notice boards - especially if you knwo someone in the local council as they have internal boards.

bread maker - after three months as bread maker saves money. It is far cheaper and better quality food.

add a tupperware box when dishing up and serve one-two extra portion each night in the tupperware and freeze, by the end of the week you will have 7-14 portions in the freezer that can be used near the end of the month etc.

Cycle every trip under three miles - this is a hugh saver, as petrol is £6 per gallon.

See if your council do free swimming for under 16.

Look on your council website for free days out and take a picnic

Thanks Bronze

Well we don't eat bread or pizza so no luck there unfortunately - DP can make his own bread anyway as his dad was a chef/butcher/baker but we just end up wasting it so don't buy or make it unless my sisters kids are coming.

We reuse leftovers for lunch the next day if there is anything left - we're both doing sw and I can't have too many carbs as it plays havoc with my blood sugar so we tend to eat mainly meat and veg and fruit which is our main cost I think, but we're both eating less.

I'm crap at growing things at home - this year I decided not to even try because for 2 years before that I tried and it was a waste of money tbh