What are your best money saving tips?

[WindInThePussyWillows]

Our landlord has put our rent up 4% and it's going to leave us very tight month to month.
Our home consists of 6 month old twins, 2 cats, DH and myself.

What are your best money saving tips and tricks? We really need to tighten our belts and I'm looking for ideas on how to start.

Thank you so much! All great ideas.
Especially the frozen veg, we have started weaning and I'm making it all myself and freezing it but have been using fresh veg.
Soap instead of shower gel is another great one we can definitely start.

As for clothes, I have been selling them on our local twins page but very very cheap as the idea is to help each other out, will definitely look to eBay some of the nicer/more expensive stuff and see if I can make a bit extra that way.

I bought DH a really expensive watch a few years back before I was made redundant and could afford extravagant gifts should have saved and we are thinking about selling it but it's his absolute pride and joy.

Everything is just so expensive and we are really struggling now. A 4% rise on the rent has taken all 'disposable' income away

avoid the shops as much as possible.

Buy bulk..I buy washing powder in 10kg sacks. Also broken dishwasher tablets. Everything works great.

Change to aldi or lidls. Their food (and nappies) are great.

Keep the one thing that's your treat. Ours is twinnings tea! It just perks you up whilst scrimping else where. Xx

Meal planning definitely brings your shopping bill down, look in the cupboards before you go to see what you can use/add to make a meal. Look to see what's on offer that week and base your meals around them. Have a couple of meat free days and make soup.

I saved money by doing DDs own dinners in little pots when she was weaning. There's loads of ideas online, potato & veg with chicken gravy and stewed apple and pear were easy and kept well. Don't be a snob and try the basic ranges, some of the stuff is perfectly fine.

I'm a big believer in shopping around for deals on insurance/utilities. You can save a fortune.

The key, as a PP have said, is to enjoy saving/getting a bargain that way it won't become a chore.

If you are selling clothes look for Facebook groups specialising in the brand.

It's hard to advise really well without a breakdown of all your outgoings. Go through your direct debits and cancel anything you don't need. Set a good budget for food / fuel / fun and stick to it religiously.

Join your local www.streetlife.com there are often people giving away lots of stuff from home grown surplus vegetables to baby equipment and clothes.

Walk rather than use the car where you can, saves wear and tear, fuel and parking costs.

Don't go shopping. I find if I walk into a shop for "just one thing" I'll nearly always come out with a few other things on top, so that £1 pint of milk becomes a £5-6 of stuff we didn't need. I now try to do without whatever we've run out of, rather than just nip out to replace it.

Move your shopping to lidl or aldi - I switched from waitrose earlier this year and honestly I've cut my grocery bill in half. Some of that is to do with limited range, so fewer treaty nibbles, but the rest is just sheer bargains (£38 yesterday in aldi for a full truly; virtually identical shop in sainsburys 3 weeks ago was £69).

Check your direct debits - are you paying out for warranties on dead items, or sponsoring charities you'd forgotten about, anything like that?

Don't eat meat every meal, and when you do, go for cheaper cuts and bulk it out with other stuff.

Eat what's in season - youve probably missed the blackberries but see if there are any unadopted apple trees all forlorn and lost (we have some which have grown from discarded apple cores in a local park); we've found chestnut trees too.

Make as much use of your freezer as you can, and check when local shops discount stuff. Our local coop reduces meat joints at around 3pm on a Sunday, once it's too late to cook them for lunch. But that's half price for the week after if you go at the right time.

Some very wise "big picture" posts here, I think.

Bar soap applies for handwash too. We have handwash for guests but mostly use soap ourselves. If you leave it unwrapped for a couple of weeks before use, it will harden up and last longer without going slimy/mushy.

I would recommend the Hugh FW Veg book for an alternative way of eating pretty cheaply without feeling deprived. Some of the recipes look a bit blah - just toms, onion etc - but actually taste incredible.

I agree Aldi/Lidl would be a good shout but failing that, I pay £6pm for tesco delivery saver and reckon this saves me money (as well as time) over going to the supermarket myself. Look into 5aDay veg box - it'll be more than aldi but it certainly competes with supermarket prices.

For the babies, I used to freeze single flavour mush in ice cubes then mixed and matched to give them different meals. A weaning baby is great as any veg can be served as finger food. if you do HM stuff from early on it helps avoid ending up with loads of expensive pouches. HM soup made from random leftover veg is healthy for adults, and can be thickened up with a bit of baby rice to make it easier for little ones to manage.

If you swap any of your providers go through Topcashback- I had over £100 back for swapping broadband providers plus a cheaper monthly bill. I use it for all insurances, everything.
Frozen veg is fine, halve your laundry detergent, small wins.
If you can find an hour an evening, join nectar canvass, short surveys for nectar points, I make round £80 a month doing surveys, a free weeks shop or treats but it is time consuming.
I used to freeze baby meals after cooking up a storm every other weekend so there was always something ready.
Go through all direct debits to make sure there is nothing you can live without. We swapped to Now TV from SKY. Our phones are capped at £10 a month.
Do you have a circle of friends you can swap items and skills with? E.g I will babysit if you trim my hair, swap books, clothes, magazines. Invite each other round for a glass of wine and crisps, its all socialising.
Could you maybe take a Saturday job? Retail is busy this time of year.
Try to have a little 'cream bun' money - small treats are vital when scrimping.

Great advice above op
My big saving tip is meaplan before your weekly shopping.
Try and avoid mid week shopping, it's easy to get carried away. (ie needing milk and ending up spending 20 pounds on "bits and pieces ")
You don't need to spend a fortune on Christmas, children are too small to notice, get family/friends to buy you useful stuff, honestly you ll save a fortune (plus toys have an habit to reproduce )
Also I don't stock up on Christmas food, I prefer to buy everything a couple of days before and include it on my meal plan, shops are only close for one day!

Thank you all so much for these great ideas.
Made a proper meal plan for the first time ever yesterday and saved £25 on our average weekly shop, if it wasn't on the list I didn't buy it and I went for mostly store brand goods.
Also bought frozen veg and have stocked my freezer with at least one weeks worth of baby food for the twins.

Cancelled sky tv it's a rip off!
Extra layers for everyone last night and heating turned down 3/4 degrees.

I think a lot of this is mindset and getting into habit.

I'm so grateful for your advise!

Take a look around the credit crunch boards and the MSE 'Grocery' boards where you will find lot of recommendations on which cheaper/value brands are worth a go. Some are fantastic, some ok/pretty good and some really not worth buying. For more expensive items (coffee, laundry detergent) it's worth checking on Mysupermarket.co.uk to see who has the best offer at the time, I never pay a fiver for my brand of coffee, I buy 2 when it's half price.

These are such great tips! Mine is a savings idea: I transfer £5 a week into our savings account. Ok, might not seem like much, but it's over £200 a year, and if I didn't I would have spent it on "nothings". It comes out automatically, so I don't have to think about it. DH also transfers a set amount but it's earmarked for the car (mot, insurance etc). We used to always struggle to come up with the lump sump, but now we take all year to save it up, so it's much less noticeable. And they say that if you do it as a priority you're more likely to actually save. I don't think I'd have £20/month to save by the end of the month, as I tend to spend what I have, so this helps. psychologically for me £5 a week is easier than £20 a month, and we don't get paid weekly (I know some people prefer to do it all just after pay day, so see if that works for you)

I can second a lot of what had already been said. Food was a major expense for us so recommend strict meal planning for the week, but with mini batches so you can freeze half for next week e.g. lasagne, fish pie. Be ruthless and do it straight away or it might get nibbled away (I'm looking at you DH!).

Switching from Sainsbury's /Tesco to Aldi cut about 1/3 from our food bills. Again, not going too often - buy extra bread and milk and freeze for later in the week. I got fruit for the week and we ate soft fruit first, grapes and bananas/apples later. If Aldi not convenient, value brands are fine. We eat mainly veggie food using lots of pulses e.g. In chickpea curry or veg chilli with wraps.

I was able to walk to work so we cut down to one car, (not possible for everyone) and I took my packed lunch with me. I bought a portable cup and carried it with me as I walked.

Also second looking at your energy / broadband providers. We went to Utility Warehouse which was much cheaper for us. I have a card that I preload and get cash off the bill if I use it in Sainsbury's and M&S.

If you've got and credit card balances there might be cheaper ways to borrow. Check with your bank. Or a different bank. If you've got a packaged account, check the value of what you actually use.

Oh, and Freeview not Sky, obviously.

Great tips on here.

Totally agree with Chipmunk that it is a better solution to earn more money than to try and scrimp too much. I appreciate that is not always an option.

If you pay your council tax over 10 months, see if you can change it to 12 months. We did this when DH was made redundant and it helped a lot. We must have done it about this time of year so that the last two normal payments got halved and then from the April payments were about £25 a month less than they had been which paid for my car insurance DD which we couldn't afford to pay as a one off sum like we would normally do.

When you go food shopping, take a list and stick to it. Before you go to the till, go through the trolley and make yourself put back anything that's crept in or that you know you can get away with not buying for another week (like washing powder)

Good luck x