Just posted this on my postnatal thread and someone suggested I post it elsewhere so others can see it. Am a bit , but we've just paid of an obscene quantity of debt through manic money saving for three years, and I thought it might be nice to share some of the hard earned lessons... Hope it isn't too patronising, I've just stuck down some of the stuff I picked up that isn't all completely obvious (or it might be, sorry if you know all of it already!).
Also, a lot of this stuff requires you to have some time. I only work a couple of days a week, but have no help the rest of the time, so mostly do baking etc in the evenings after DS is in bed, or spread it out throughout the day.
First, we managed to get our food shopping bill (we eat almost entirely organic) down to £167.89 per month for two of us plus incredibly greedy toddler (eats as much as average 5 year old, as far as I can tell from other children, but obviously a lot less than an extra adult would). Here's foodie tips:
- Bake everything from scratch. Not just bread, but biscuits (here v cheap brilliant recipe), cakes, english and american muffins, bagels (bit fiddly but yummy), pitta bread, pizza dough, everything
- Bake once or twice a week, and once it's gone, it's gone (especially sweet treats). You soon learn to eke things out a bit! It usually takes me the best part of a day with DS, or an evening after he's gone to bed, to do a week's baking - I freeze some of it usually, so it's not stale by the end of the week
- Make pasta from scratch - we have a pasta maker attachment for the Kenwood chef, but you can get those rolling out ones to make tagliatelle pretty cheaply (often in charity shops or ebay too). You can make expensive and gorgeous egg pasta, or super cheapy pasta (lots of recipes online), which is less tasty but costs bugger all
- I do a 'dry goods' shop once a month, buying flour, lentils, porridge oats, sugar, etc. This costs in the region of £25, then the rest of the month I only buy meat, fruit, veg and last minute ingredients that I forgot. I get a small veg box from Riverford every week or two (but only if I can menu plan for everything in it), but I don't find their fruit that great. I budget £13 for veg (price of R'ford box), and £20 a week for everything that isn't veg or dry goods
- Forage! Seriously. I got loads and loads of blackberries and apples last year which I mostly made into jam. I also froze some which we use to make berry lemon pudding (gooey nursery pudding, can post recipe), crumble etc
- If you get a book out the library (you can usually order them quite cheaply if they don't have it in stock - ours is 50p), you can forage for other stuff. Last year I made nettle soup with foraged nettles, and found loads of wild herbs which I dried and keep in tupperwares. I chuck them in stew etc
- If you've got friends with gardens, ask around to see if anyone's got fruit trees. My mum has pears, another friend knew where a plum tree was, and I preserved them in spiced vinegar, in syrup (just like tinned fruit, and if you drain them well they're not too unhealthy), and dried them (apple rings dry really well). Also made jams and chutneys, so we never have to buy them (nice chutney is insanely expensive, and we eat loads of it)
- I grew salad leaves (mostly rocket) last summer - saves a bloody fortune and is insanely easy - find pot/tray/bucket/patch of earth, sprinkle seeds over, ignore for 2 weeks, eat. You may need to water occasionally if it's really dry, but I don't think i did very often. If you plant a patch every week for a month you more or less get a continuous supply, as they keep coming again once you've cut them
- We also grew tomatoes - probably only worth it if you have a greenhouse or live on the south coast in terms of getting a value for money result, but possibly if you're more green fingered than me you'd do well (and could preserve them too, if there was a glut)
10. I love squash, organic squash costs a fortune, so I picked LOADS of elderflowers last year and made massive batches of elderflower cordial (I make it v strong, so it's got more sugar to water, which means it lasts ages. 8 months and counting, and we haven't bought squash yet!)
11. We only eat meat a couple of times a week. We have a couple of real cheapie meals (jacket potatoes with tuna/onion mix, pasta with tomato and basil sauce) a week too. The rest are somewhere inbetween!
12. One pack of diced beef (400g) makes a mahoosive stew, bulked out with loads of veg and dumplings (Atora suet, flour and herbs). That will last us for two main meals for the three of us, two or three lunches for DS and two or more lunches for DP to take to work, so at least 6 adult portions and 4 child portions (about 2/3 our portion, as T eats so much, but luckily he's not so impressed with beef!)
13. I'm trying to get to grips with lentils/pearl barley etc, but I don't cook with them that much. Sometimes chuck them in stew or soup to bulk it out, but it's a bit of a learning curve, as some things aren't that impressive with added lentils.
14. We don't eat that much fresh fruit - for instance, a bag of apples, a bag of satsumas and a bunch of bananas will
easily last us a week. You can get most nutrients from veg, and DP and DS have learned to like it or lump it!
15. We eat very little cereal - it costs a fortune! We buy a box every couple of weeks for a treat. Lots of porridge though, or bagels, toast or fruit scones for breakfast
16. Menu planning, obviously. It's seriously amazing. Then either shop online or instore, depending on your level of commitment to the List.
Save money on car stuff:
- If you live within 10 miles of work and are vaguely active and the commute is usually slow, cycle.! Even if you spend a couple of hundred quid on a decent bike, you'll make it back pretty quickly. DP cycles about 60% of the time (not particularly in wintter) and has already paid off the bike he bought in September in terms of fuel money saved
- Generally try to use the car less. If there's more than one of you, however, it's usually cheaper to use the car than the train. We only use ours for long trips to parents and the odd commute for DP now, I walk everywhere, and have got used to the idea that it takes 35 mins to walk to baby group, 25 mins to the supermarket (dry goods shop I use the car, veg box is delivered, I can fit the rest on the pram every week), instead of 5 mins to drive everywhere. Also I can eat more sweet treats if I walk more!
- Check for car insurance when it's time to renew. Boring but true.
- Drive boringly. It'll save you loadsa money. It really will! You can save something like 10% of your fuel by driving in the most efficient way possible (basically gentlre braking and accelerating), which with petrol at over £1.10 per litre, is a lot!
Umm... Other random stuff:
- Do the usual USwitch or whatever for bills. It might not save you much, but even a few quid here and there adds up
- I always say this, and it's totally obvious and not at all revolutionary, but use the budget planner on www.moneysavingexpert.com. It has spaces for everything and is very scary and enlightening all at once. I have added in things like saving £3 a month for August preserve-fest (when I make jam, preserved fruit etc) as well.
- Try handmade christmas presents. Oh, it's oh so twee, but things like a jar with the ingredients for cookies prettily layered in it (minus eggs and butter, please), or Christmas cake baked from scratch (not cheap, but if you usually spend £50 on someone, it's cheaper than that!). I sometimes knit gifts, but TBH it's usually bakes as I can leave it till the last minute!
- I am also a complete loser and make crackers. Save toilet rolls, order snaps from Amazon (£5 for enough snaps to last the rest of your life), buy crepe paper and tissue paper (for hats!), and follow instructions from somewhere online. You can put sweets or something in, and copy jokes from online. It's not loads cheaper, but if you normally buy quite expensive crackers it's cheaper and definitely more eco than the sackful of rubbish you get from normal ones.
- Accept that actually, treats are something that happen to other people. OK, it's shit, but when you've worked so bloody hard to save a tenner on your food bill, what's the point in spending £8 on takeaway as a rewards? (NB: my takeaway is not that cheap, but you get my point).
- Ebay everything you own that you don't need, including unopened perfume from Christmas, those freebies you get when you spend £1,000 of more at clinique, clothes, everything.
- Be brutal with your wardrobe. You'll be amazed (a) at how many more clothes you have that actually do match and (b) how many you can ebay.
- Think about getting your boots reheeled twice a year rather than wearing them to death one year and needing new ones next year. Ditto for all other shoes. And think about taking the same care of any expensive overcoats etc
- think about things you 'need' in advance and keep an eye out in charity shops and ebay (I have some ebay searches saved and do a quick schlep round local charity shops most weeks). For instance, my current 'need' list includes new bed linen and towels (old ones are sad but not unusable), so I'm slowly accumulating plain white 100% cotton ones when I see them. I'll make the bedset match with a bit of ribbon or something (like this. Have done it before for a friend, is surprisingly cool! I'll rebind the towels with coloured bias binding to make matching bath/hand/face towel sets.
- Boot fairs are also good - I got a massive casserole dish that I only need a couple of times a year for the grand sum of £1 from a boot fair. Would have cost a fortune new.
- Every time you leave the house, take some water and a snack for you and DCs. Number of times I've gone out and ended up being out longer than expected and had to buy a snack (and water. I resent paying for water!)
Sorry if those are crap and/or unimaginative! If you've got any other less obvious hints, feel free to add them - we're saving for a house deposit now, so still need to live on 50p a year...