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

Definitely use vinegar as a household cleaner.

Shop at boot fairs, all my clothes are 2nd hand and are much better brand names than I used to get!

Ebay anything that you don't use and list through Auctiva They are totally free, as many pictures as you like, free templates and best of all free scheduling so you can end your auctions at the best times and get the best price.

Growing veg and herbs is great to and very rewarding.

Use the oil cleansing method instead of buying expensive cleansers and moisturisers.

Thread about it here - it really works and is very, very cheap.

make your own febreeze, 1/3 fabric softener to 2/3 water.
just as effective

I've gone over to using soap instead of shower gel as it's cheaper and lasts longer. My young children also use baby soap, now they are all over 2- again more economical and Johnson's baby soup I find doesn't dry our their skin.

We also keep an eye on 'Gunmtree Freebies'. It's a bit like Freecycle. Just go to the Gumtree website and click on 'freebies'.

I always make a stock from a roast chicken and then make a tasty spicy veggy soup with lentils and any old veg I have.

I am now getting into baking my cakes. I've always cooked healthy meals but baking my own cakes is saving money no nasty additives. Ir really only takes 10 mins or so to knock up a sponge, banana loaf or scones and my kids love it! A cheap electric whisk was a godsend!

I keep all my old cards- birthday, Christmas etc and cut out any nice pictures. I then re-use the pictures for homemade cards, collages,crafting with the kids.

I have also just bought a sewing machine and made 3 cushions from material/unused curtain I had lying around. I'm still a beginner when it comes to sewing but I think it's a good investment. I'm hoping to make lots more as I get more confident. You can pick them up second hand from Ebay quite cheaply or a basic model is about 60-70 pounds form Argos/Tesco direct. My cushions only took half an hour each to make, so it's not too time consuming.

We're going to get some grow bags and grow our own toms, beans and perhaps potatoes in a wheelbarrow! Again, we're beginners but I'm looking forward to growing my own veg and plants to help cut down our spending.

Definately recommend a slow cooker- fantastic and uses less electricity.

Have Economy 7 installed if you can and do the washing later in the evening. Huge savings on electricity to be had here.

Some of the Discount brands from Tesco's we find are very good- 'Daisy' laundry products, 'Oak Farm' baked beans, tinned toms and quiches and discount pasta is fine.

It's the good life for us here in suburban Bromley!

good luck with the planting honeydew...i have planted potatoes, dear easy, courgettes, cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, lettuce, spring onions and radish, all to save money

Some really good ideas!

This is a bit more of a long-term tip, but I've got a credit card which gives points (M&S) but it would work with one that gives cash-back too. Instead of using cash or switch to buy food or petrol, I use my card. This earns me points on the stuff that I'd buy anyway, which I save and use for special occasions (birthdays etc.) when I might have the expense of catering for friends and family. I don't worry about the added expense of these occasions and people think that I've pushed the boat out !

BUT...this only works if you set up a direct debit to pay the balance in full every month and you get into the mentality that, although the food/petrol, etc. money is still in your account, it has already been spent.

Also, blitz crusts into breadcrumbs and freeze for making fishcakes, risotto cakes and stuff and try to have a group of friends and family who work on the 'comes around, goes around' principle. For example, my dad has got our old digibox and I'm getting his old shed. My manure for my little allotment patch comes from another plot-holder who I bung a couple of jars of chutney to (made from gluts of courgettes and tomatoes and stuff).

And don't be too proud to accept cast-offs from friends' children. I'm amazed at the people I know who won't accept hand-me-downs. Ds owes most of his playing-out clothes to kind friends .

Don't just turn mobile phone chargers off at the plug - also digital radios, printers, laptops, anything with a transformer. And put your computer to sleep when you walk away from it, turn it off if you are going to be away for more than half an hour.

Also, get one of those monitors that shows you energy usage - we got one and have got our elec use down by 30% - the guilt it induces every time I turn the oven on or use the tumbledryer is pretty effective!

And find a good butcher who sells all of the animal - we buy ham hocks (mmmm, soup), chicken carcasses (ditto, and risotto) and oxtail, all of which cost £2 or so a pop and give you loads of meals. Also bacon offcuts - I chop them up and freeze them in small bags for all the times a recipe wants 50g of bacon - costs about 20p a bag.

Agree about rocket - costs a fortune in the shops, grows like a weed almost anywhere!

rocket, little gem, in fact any kind of lettuce. grow in a small tub and plant abit every week gives you a continuous supply.

also use the used cups from vending machines to plant seedlings rather than buying plantpots. just remember to put a drainage hole in the bottom.

also to plant tomatoes, or anything in really, ask at the supermarket if you can have the old buckets the flowers come in as they only throw them away. chat nicely to the green grocery manager and he will save them for you, thats what i do and he saves me the trays the mushrooms come in too, saves me buying gravel trays

By supermaket basic food, not brands. Little Stars yoghurts are £1.58 for 6, tesco yogurts ane 49p for 6 with the exact same nutritional value!

Join boots parenting club and and get a boots card. You can get points for stuff you have to buy, the stuff you buy every week anyway. Boots do 3 packs of wet wipes for £3 and for every pound you spend you get 4 points back on your card.

bump

Food shop on line. So much easier to budget. I always do my first shop with lots of nice things on, then go back into the order the night before delivery to take off anything we don't actually need. I set myself a budget and stick to it.

Don't go into a supermarket to buy odd items you have forgotten. I have never yet been into one without coming out with half a dozen things I didn't intend to buy.

Replace one supper a week with beans on toast.

Make your own bread.

Try value items. Things like fruit juice, chocolate digestives, fruit etc (i.e. not meat)are fine.

Bulk buy if you have the space. I bought 10 boxes of DSs favourite cereal a few weeks back when it was half price and it will last us for ages.

Do try the cheaper supermarkets if you haven't given them a go. Our Aldi is great for baked goods and I went into Farmfoods today and bought lots of the branded frozen foods we buy for about half the price of sainsburys. Seeds of Change organic sauce - £2.29 in Sainsburys - 39p!!! in Farmfoods.

chop up potatoes and veg really small when boiling to cut gas usage in half. Bulk cook to avoid duplicating on oven heating. Microwave when poss even if only to partly cook before finishing in the oven.

I second the childrens clothes point. Have recently had a couple of bags full from two different friends which are barely worn and will save us a fortune.

Pop into second hand shops for childrens books. Ours sells childrens books for 20p each or a couple of pounds for an armful. Or even better join the library.

Return products that are no good rather than throwing away. I have just had loads of vouchers from Cocal Cola for having a half empty can of diet coke.

Use the vouchers from magazines etc. Most supermarkets accept them even when you're not buying the product.

Sign up to Quidco for cashback on purchases.

Buy kids toys on ebay. DS1 recently fixted on something they no longer sell in the shops and so we had to buy it second hand on ebay. he loves them and doesn't know any different.

Swap books with friends and colleaagues.

Have a babysitting rota with friends.

Check your gas and electricty bills carefully whehn they are done on estimated usage. Our gas bill recently came through
as £638 and when I checked the actual usage and gave them a reading it came down to 322!!

Mix kids juice with water. Its better for them anyway.

Buy reusable nighttime pull ups for children who are out of nappies but still not going through the night. Saved us a fortune.

pick up presents in the sales and put aside for when needed.

Think that's all we're doing so far but will be pinching tips from others!

Keep a calculator in your handbag for checking the bulk buy prices. They make it deliberately confusing on the labels. Particularly useful with nappies etc to see whether the special offers are actually cheaper than just buying a larger packet.

Really good tips, everyone, thanks so much. I am growing veg this year, too, and plan to make jam and chutney. If you can't grow enough of your own stuff, a good tip is to take advantage of the cheap fruit in supermarkets' basic ranges (plums and strawberries always have 'cheap' times of year with lots of BOGOF offers etc) when it's in season. Make jam, stewed fruit, fruit sauce for ice cream etc and freeze or bottle it for later use when those fruits are really expensive. And you can freeze lots of kinds of veg, in season, if your freezer is large enough.

Some value meat is perfectly okay. Lamb is always a good one to go for if worried about animal welfare as it's pretty much pointless to intensively farm it. Sheep tend to be raised on land that's not suitable for anything else and although not organic is apparently not bad from welfare point of view.

Sainsburys do a Freedom Food range of meat which has higher animal welfare standards (approved by RSPCA) but much cheaper than organic or free range.

Turn oven off five minutes before end of cooking time and leave food in for extra couple of minutes. Then leave door open when you remove food to heat up the kitchen.

This is a long term one but a fantastic deal. Dunelm Mill are selling energy saving lightbulbs for £1 for 10!!

for whoever it was that asked - we meal plan lunches as well but only because ds1 is 2.9 so often eats a snacky lunch like cheese on toast or similar

was surprised in tescos the other day that their own tea bags for 80 were 99p and then for 160 were 3.29! i had to look twice - so always check.

dishwasher tabs - always look for whats on offer

tescos do a cheap one big roll of kitchen roll "perfect for bbq's" - much cheaper than other ones there and just the same.

discount brand loo roll - it's recycled and about half the price of even the cheaper branded recycled stuff

we also make our own biscuits and cakes - no added nasties, and as it goes so much further i do get organic ingredients as ds1 eats them as mid morning snack

i have started having boiled eggs and toast for dinner one night a week not least because it's so yummy and means i don't overeat

ue leftovers - there's some stigma to using leftovers here and shouldn't be - if you have leftover mash make fishcakes out of it (tinned fish bought on offer of course!), slice up and freeze roast dinner meat - it's great in sandwiches later

i second the joys of roast gammon - we buy a big gammon, slice it really thin for sandwiches, put it in pastas, ds1 loves it for lunch with cheese, bread and butter, have it in salads during the summer

we are also planting our own tomatoes, salad and strawberries this summer. can't get dh to let me plant anything else - we don't have enough room!

Loving your work, all of you!

On not wasting food, try lovefoodhatewaste.com

NCT sales for outgrown clothes, toys etc. I've not done it myself yet but know that the proceeds are divided between the sellers and the charity. Saves all that plastic in landfill too.

Children's books from charity shops, then donate them back when outgrown.

There are so many vouchers/ 2 for 1/ kids eat free deals to be had for restaurants at the moment - almost as cheap as eating in (well maybe not but nice to still be able to treat yourself)

Check out off peak discounts for local attractions eg. after school during term times. Also look for free kids activities in bookshops, museums, libraries

Sorry if I've duplicated any previous posts....

Oh, and try your local Country Market (used to be the WI Market). Ours sell bunches of flowers (£1.60!) and free range eggs v cheaply, and in the summer they sell every kind of veg you can imagine. Not only is it cheap, but it's also ethical, local and with about as few food miles as you can imagine.**disclaimer: this tip may not work in Hackney

Great tips everyone! Second hand shops are great for adults clothes too, not just kids I've found. You need to pop in them on a speculative basis every now and then. I've managed to get together quite a few nice bits for the coming summer (hoping we'll get one!)this way. And today I got a really nice pair of trousers (M&S) for 99p. How fab!

Also for anyone feeling more adventurous, make your own bio-diesel fuel. My dh (a professional engineer) has set up his own little plant in the garage and is collecting used vegetable oil from local eateries and converting it to fuel. He is making more than we'll use so he is selling some to friends! All legal and above board (so he tells me!). See here for more info: journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html

Don't be scared to try value ranges - e.g. Morrisons Value toilet roll is £1.12 for 12 rolls and is fine, it's soft and lasts as long as stuff at 4 times the price.

Oh, and always use tea bags twice - you really can't tell!

Find out if there is a farmers fruit and veg scheme in your area. I pay £2 a bag (tesco carrier bag size full) full of seasonal veg.
Chop bag and freeze on the day so you don't have any wastage and you just use what you need. Saves time too.

Use flannels instead of baby wipes, they actually work a lot better anyway. Use with some warm water or baby lotion.

Also cloth nappies saved me a fortune.