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

i use washing up liquid for pretty much all the household cleaning - much better in the bathroom for shine! (i decided i didnt want to risk giving dd allergies etc when she was born as dh was best friends with his bleach/anti bac spray so i have banned them all)

has anyone had any joy with uswitch etc for utility bills?

I switched with energy helpline, i'm only saving £8 per month on my bills due to the harsh winter, but thats still £96 a year, and I reckon I might well be in credit at the end of the year. i also got 30 quid for switching.

My best tip is don't be loyal to your bank if they are crap. we were paying £( per month for a lloyds account that had some 'free' benefits which we never used. I have since ditched them and moved over to alliance and leicester, who paid me £100 for the privilege. i then recommended my mum and got another £25. So if you have to pay for your bank account or overdraft privileges, move your accounts elsewhere.

Instead of bread, try making bacon and cheese scroll or similar - make the dough then add the extras Great for after school snacks and fairly healthy too!

We don't eat a lot of bread but I buy wholemeal loaves when they have the reduced whoospie stickers on and freeze to save money.

Sainsburys basic tea bags are great and only about 30p for 80! Honestly try them, for that price they can be binned if you are not impressed. I drink a lot of tea so this saves me a fortune as I used to only buy branded tea bags.

I buy big bags of onions and big punnets of mushrooms as they work out cheaper, chop, bag them up and freeze leaving just a week's worth in the fridge.

I cook in bulk saves time and money.

I can't grow my own this year as no garden but could do some windowsill pots, will look into it.

My dh switches our electricity providers online every couple of months. He's just gone to Scottish Power or some such. Changes credit cards for best deals all the time too. I find dealing with those things achingly boring but appreciate him saving what he says is 'loads' of money.

I tend to base our meals around what is on offers, eg. half price tomatoes etc. Have no brand loyalty so I just get whatever food is cheapest each week. Have also discovered Farmfoods does very cheap fresh milk. Does anyone know why it is so cheap and if I should be cautious about it? £1 for a 2litre (nearly 4pints) bottle, so about half the price of Sainsburys I think. Am eagerly reading other people's tips!

Have just checked 'pricechecker.co.uk' and the Farmfoods milk's about a third less than Sainsbury's and others, but still not a bad saving as long as you don't use much extra petrol to get there.

My big tip is to look at thinkbanking. You do pay a monthly fee, but there are no other charges whatsoever. If you are bad at managing your money it is a godsend.

You get two accounts- "salary" and "card". The Salary one is where everything gets paid into, it automatically keeps hold of what is needed for bills and transfers your spending money to your card, so you don't spend vital money.

It really has saved me a fortune and a lot of worry as well. No credit check either.

thats a brilliant idea butterpie
I basically do that but I'm probably more falliable than the bank (though I know theyre not perfect)
will have a look and see, the fee will be the deciding factor

I found I have saved it over and over again as I was losing over £100 a month in bank charges. But then I am VERY bad with money...

I do what butterpie does but the other way round. I get paid/all ingoings into one account and transfer all I need for bills into my other account.

Having online banking means I can manage all our accounts 24/7 and can transfer money between immediately - even just for 24 hours just to cover a direct debit. SO I don't tend to get any bank charges.

Also it means I can transfer the odd 5quid here and there into my savings and also ds account (or even less if I don't have that much) so even though we are on a low income I can (very slowly admittedly) try and build them up.

Pre chop onions/garlic/ginger/herbs etc into portion size amounts and freeze so that they don't go off and you can cook from scratch very easily and cheaply when tired. I also freeze stock (as icecubes - I boil it down so one ice cube = 1 stock cube so easier to store). Any fruit or veg you can freeze is a bonus as most can be used from frozen.

Also some things like peppers are cheaper to buy by the frozen bag than by fresh - as we only eat them cooked it doesn't make any difference so worth checking the prices of your frozen veg compared to fresh.

We also use supermarket for deals on large joints of meat - buy them up and chop them into 3 or 4 portions and freeze. Though unless good offers our butchers is cheaper.

Would love to get a chest freezer for the garage for more freezing as it saves so much money in the long run. Grated cheese/breadcrumbs/meat/fish/pastry etc all can be frozen adn stops anything going off (which was our main expense before).

We have a local farm shop that is pricy for meat and cupboard goods but so much cheaper than supermarket for fruit/veg (which they grow on site). Also if anything is going out of date they give it to you for free (and then I can prep and freeze it).

At the moment with both me and dh at home we can shop every couple of days which saves money for us as we only buy what we need when we need it. Otherwise we try to do a monthly shop (online) and then just use the farm shop/butcher weekly. As I've been ill though we are back to supermarket which actually costs more (though I always check the price down section).

Places like iceland/farm foods are brilliant for frozen veg adn for your basic frozen products. Often much cheaper than standard supermarkets.

Have to admit a chest freezer has been brilliant. Got mine for my birthday before last. (I must be boring with my presents but they make life so much better)
With 6 of us one meal takes up more freezer space so the extra space was fab. Means I can store gluts too

Love my slow cooker for batch cooking (in fact I have 3 slow cookers) and my bread maker.

do chest freezers cost much extra to run?

I thought chest freezers were cheaper to run than upright . I always believed that when you opened an upright one, all the cold air sort of fell out IYSWIM whereas with a chest freezer this cant happen. But what do I know?!!

Riven which asian grocers do you use?

Thank you will check them out

Have just started thread in local about local places to save money.

I sold quite a few items of clothing on ebay - the ones I knew i'd never fit back into that I was holding on to! Some only went for a couple of quid but when I checked my paypal it had £80 in! (Spent it now of course!)

We have a bread maker and I also bake some lovely oat biscuits when I know i've got visitors coming - far cheaper than buying stuff in and actually much nicer.

Can I just ask, with freezing veg, can you freeze all veg? We often buy veg and end up not using it, so pre-chopping and then freezing might work well for us.

I think our main food cost issue is wastage

I need to find a good book/online site to read all about what you can freeze/reheat and ways to cut our food costs. Does anyone have any recommendations for a kind of idiot guide?

Eddas - try Love Food Hate Waste online.

We have a tesco credit card and we purchase EVERything on it (food/petrol/clothes) we never use switch. We clear the balance each month and because of the amount we spend on it we get lots of clubcard points which we use for any meals/days out etc - Has saved us a fortune over the years.

Travel a bit further a field to posher areas and check out their charity shops you will often find lots of great brands in there. The only "labelled " stuff I own is from charity shops.

Plan where you may need to drive to each week and see if you can combine trips to save petrol (also make sure your car is carrying bare minimum load)

Marking my place cos I'm to tired to see to read.

GoingToBedNowTiggaxx

I also use microfiber cleaning clothes so use no detergents or cleaning products at all.

This is a bit but I turn the shower off whilst I'm washing my hair and body to save water