Money Saving Tips for a Family

[amireallythatsad]

Seeing the current economical climate and the fact that I am lone parent with no money....come on ladies and gents lets share some money saving and money making tips.

Here are a few of the more obvious

Turn heating down
Line dry clothes rather than tumble dry
Energy saving lightbulbs
Shower
Full loads of laundry
Bulk buy

Any more.....any more....

Ooo and here is one, making banana loaf with the bananas that go too brown and mushy.

And I'm growing some veggies....come on there must be more

Do you menu plan just dinners inc veg or do you include lunches.

if you do lunches could you please post some ideas thanks.

Loving these tips especially ones including lentils yummy!

The discount voucher websites can anyone recommend a good website to use?

Meal plans are soo good!

Whats Freecycle? Sorry for my ignorance

And can you post a link for me?! Thanks

Oh and the discount voucher ones are fab, I dont have 'one' that I use I google the voucher Im looking for and look through them till I find best deal.

Be careful with the bulk buying tip!
I was in the supermarket the other day and had the option of buying
a) 150 ml for 59p or
b) 290 ml for 209p

I haven't mis-typed that. The supermarkets usually show price per litre or price per gramme etc: do a double check and don't assume that bulk is cheaper.

GM Yeast is free at tesco???

Cycle instead of driving if you can
Buy things second hand
Sell/giveaway your unwanted items
Use freeview instead of sky
Use a cheap pay as you go mobile
Cook in bulk and freeze
Sell your tumble drier and dishwasher
Grow some of your own food eg herbs and lettuce

Get a slow cooker from Tesco for £10

I add tin of baked beans to minced beef in cottage pie - my family love this

make your own pasta sauce out of tinned tomatoes, onions, garlic (then add pepper or tuna etc as you want)

Re lunches - we have a microwave at work. If you make extra bolognese or chilli concarne take the extra to work with jacket potato. I often have jacket potato with baked beans (mainly because I cant' be bothered to make a sandwich). My colleague buys same in canteen downstairs and it costs about £2.50!! Mine is about 50 p.

I try to be both ethical and cost cutting. I've bought fair trade T shirts in Tesco and organic cotton T shirts in Primark and New Look. Makes me feel less guilty for buying cheap clothing.

Re banana loaf, do you all know that you can freeze the bananas as they are in their skins and take out later to make into banana loaf/muffins? This is great as in my house the weeks the bananas go off is not the week I have the time/inclination to bake.

Cloth nappies have saved me a fortune now I'm on my third in cloth.

We've just got some hens through a charity that rehome battery hens. Only got them on saturday and we've had 5 eggs already!! My family is gonna be eating a lot of eggs. Hens should be easy and cheap to look after by all accounts too.

Yeast Yes if you go on the moneysavingexpert forums and search under yeast, there is a thread explianing it. I have tried this and they do give you it! DP makes lovely pizzas and garlic breads with ours.

I second buying reduced items we shop on a sunday afternoon and get soo much for our money! I then plan meals from what I have bought on offer/reduced. Last night I wrote down 21 dinners and about a dozen lunches! (This was from what we bought that afternoon in Tesco, we spent £60 which is a lot for us, we usually spend £50 per week.

My tip is camping. We love it. We have a basic tent from Argos which is not the size of our house, and we have a great time for very little cost.

We use a slow cooker. Great for cooking large pots of chilli (which we freeze and cook up with rice or have with jacket potatoes). Yet to branch out and cook other stuff in it but it's brill and uses very little electricity. Plus dinner is ready when I get home from work (even if the house smells slightly of chilli!)

Also recently discovered the delights of roast gammon. Cheap to buy, cooks up lovely and we use it all up by having left overs with pasta & carbonara sauce.

For several years now, we put monthly cash in jars in the kitchen - it really helps taking cash to the supermarket as you're less tempted to add pointless things to the trolley. When the money's gone, it's gone! That way we also use up all the random stuff in the cupboards/freezer etc.

My big tip is: If you have a TESCO clubcard, do you know that the coupons are worth four times the amount in deals vouchers?
We had a conversation at work the other day and only two of us knew it?!! They can be used on loads from car servicing to cafe rouge, pizza express, loads of theme parks...

tesco deals

Lots of people at work just used their coupons as money of their shopping, but thwy are only worth face value, i.e. £10 coupon worth £10 at Tesco (off bill) but worth £40 in 'deals'.

DH and I have lots of meals out on Tesco, for nothing!!! We've stayed in hotels, got car serviced...it's the best reward card I think.

It's funny, lots of these tips make me think 'do people really do that?' i.e. Not making a list of meals and shopping 'ad hoc', or using a tumble dryer all the time . I hang my washing out on the line unless it's so cold it doesn't dry, so up until late Nov and as early as Feb this year.

Will try and think of more tips.....

Have a swap party with friends - take along outgrown children's clothes which are still in good condition, your own clothes-buying mistakes, books you won't read again, unwanted household stuff etc etc. Have a glass or two of wine and then have a good rummage!

freecycle

Freeze leftover cooked veg in small batches until you have enough for soup or add to other meals

Sow perpetual spinach and rocket - they go on forever!

Re use tea bags and clean with bicarb and vinegar. Turn old sheets etc into polish cloths and damp dust. The list is endless.

I didn't mean clean the teabags!

Ha ha, good name too!

My main one is setting up a boring old spreadsheet with all your regular incomings and outgoings on it for each coming month, under different headings. Set a budget for things like food and going out and STICK TO IT! Check it every day and keep it up to date - eg, if you fill your car up with petrol, put the amoount it came to on the spreadsheet as soon as you can. There are budgeting templates ready-made on the Microsoft website which you can download and tailor to your own circumstances.

I have downloaded a fab one - it's been fantastic as DH has been underpaid this month so we have really had to be careful with our spending, and this has helped us keep an eye on things so much. I am hoping it's finally going to help us get our huge overdraft down.

Like others have said: Meal plan! So important to do it, even if it seems like a ball ache. If you want to be really geeky and anal (like me, ha ha), as part of your planning you could even go to a supermarket's online shopping website and do your shopping list on there to see exactly what the total cost will be, even if you have no intention of getting it delivered. You can also shop around for deals on there while you're sitting at home, rather than faffing around in the shop itself. So saves time AND money!

I love approved food www.approvedfood.co.uk/
I put in an order every couple of months. If you steer clear of the heavy bottled drinks and go for the lighter stuff you can get an absolute shit-load of stuff for the minimum £5.25 carriage.

I appreciate some of the stuff might not be everyones cup of tea but if you are a bit flexible with sell by dates you can get some amazing bargains. (Not everything is out of date lots more info on the site)