What are your thrifty money-saving tips? Share with Scottish Friendly to win a £300 voucher NOW CLOSED

[AmeliaMumsnet]

Scottish Friendly are launching the Great British Savings Challenge to encourage people to think about their saving habits and financial security. For young people in the future, saving for a financially secure family is going to get tougher, so Scottish Friendly want to encourage a positive discussion on the subject, by asking you for your top thrifty money-saving tips.

Here’s what Scottish Friendly have to say: ‘The Great British Savings Challenge will follow 2 families from across the UK spanning a range of family and financial circumstances. Each family will take on a series of challenges; ranging from only using cash for a month to see if they keep track of expenditure more closely, to swapping the brand they buy at the supermarket.

Each family will produce blogs and vlogs each month to be hosted on the Scottish Friendly website. Readers will able to keep track of their progress, the problems each family faces along the way and how they work through these.’

So, whether you put aside percentage of your wages, or just rifle around the sofa cushions every few months for small change.. Maybe you plan all of your lunchtime packed lunches to avoid expensive coffee shop sandwiches or have a cheaper home-made alternative to branded cleaning products.. Share your top thrifty tips for saving money on the thread below and you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 voucher of your choice (from a list).

For another chance to win, add your money saving tips to Scottish Friendly's Facebook post to be entered into a prize draw for a £10 gift card.

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

I do loads of batch cooking to avoid waste and make the most of ingredients.

I also refine my search on the tesco app when i'm doing my online shop to see the special offers, and then buy multiples of things on offer and freeze them

Online grocery shopping. Since we started doing our food shop online we have saved loads as its easier to stick to a budget, easier to find offers and less likely to make impulse buys.

Always look for deals when shopping and stock up on essentials when on offer. Keep and eye on your bank balance so never go over and if you can transfer an amount every month to a separate bank account for holidays or emergencies.

Always meal plan for the week - it stops you picking up extra bits that you don't need and also saves on food waste

Always leave the house with a bottle of water and a snack. Easily saves a couple of £'s a day.

Anything under 50p in my purse goes straight into a piggy bank- I don't miss it and it soon adds up!

Always shop around for the best bargains, check the supermarket websites beforehand so you know what offers they have on if you need to stock up on particular items.

We plan our meals weekly, though not so rigidly that "Monday is always Spag Bol day" etc. We just make sure we have enough meals for the week, writing our list based on what is in the freezer, so we have 7-8 meals available to cook (fajitas, curry, chilli, spaghetti and sauce etc) It stops random buying of food that looks or sounds nice but then you have to buy other foods to eat with it. Go through your freezer, and you'll probably be shocked at how much money is sitting there! We barely throw any food away these days.

We also are avid ebayers, selling lots and lots of what previously we would have binned or charity shopped. We make a couple of hundred pounds every couple of months from stuff we no longer want, whether it's clothing, toiletries, bikes the children have grown out of, old technology, unwanted gifts etc etc etc. Your trash is someone else's treasure, and I never cease to be amazed at what people will pay for something I was prepared to bin!

I meal plan for the week before going shopping as it helps to avoid impulse buying and means that I only buy what I really need.

Shopping in the evening is also good as you can often get a lot of meat on reduce to clear which saves a lot of money

I have a direct debit that goes from my current account to my savings on payday meaning that I don't have a chance to spend it!

I plan meals for the week every Sunday morning. I batch cook, as I work full time and my OH isn't the best cook.. so I save money by doing a big shop once a week- but only of the things we're going to need. Oh, and we simply don't eat any snacks. Each evening I get back and my OH preps the meals for the kids and us, and we can have a family meal.. I think it prob saves us about £40 a week..

I cook from scratch and shop around.

Work out the cost of the actual items, e.g the cost of a 200g block of cheese against the cost of a 250g block - work out cost per gram

Shop at Aldi. Never just renew insurance, always shop around. Don't buy magazines.

DH is quite fond of buying large quantities of things that are on special offer or BOGOF, which saves money but has the downside of making our house look like we are preparing to withstand a siege.

I take a flask to days out now rather than getting takeout teas or coffees, and we always take picnics/packed lunches. I don't drink alcohol, we rarely eat out and almost never get takeaways. But I fritter money away on my daughter (4) who loves magazines and gift shop toys. I need to get more willpower at resisting her tantrums. Maybe I should only take a small amount of cash on days out.

We also need to be on the ball in terms of ensuring that the savings accounts are getting good rates (as much as is possible these days).

I always try to freeze things and not always leave them right up until their use by date as it means they are that little bit fresher when they do come out the freezer

I try and save money by using cashback sites and searching for discount codes if ordering online.

I've also increased the amount of shops own brand items we buy and have tried to reduce food waste by only buying what we need.

Always check for discount vouchers/ashback sites for online purchases

Pop your loose change in a bottle/jar every night. We normally have over £700 at the end of each year

We've struggled a bit financially following ill health & 2 sets of childcare.

So it's been out with Sainsbury's & in with Lidl, EBay instead of high street stores, discount vouchers for attractions instead of full-price.

The supermarket shop has been the biggest savers; we hardly use any brand names now & can get the vast majority of the weekly shop at Lidl.

The thing I have found most difficult is make up/toiletries. The cheaper brands seem to be a false economy. I've never found an alternative to Christian Dior mascara & have decided to ask for it for Christmas/Birthday presents, rather than spending money on rubbish cheaper brands.

I've found some really good deals along the way: Kids AM cinema tickets for £2 at 10am showings have become a regular feature, my local co-op has a brilliant daily mark-down section (veggies for 30p).

I think my spending habits have changed permanently, I hope I'll never be in the same financial situation again.

I always meal plan for our week, including lunches for myself and our son, leaving one day spare for us to use up whatever is left over before the next shop comes. We also online food shop as we can just spend the £40 a week then and not be tempted by junk! if we didn't need £40 of food shopping I top it up to the minimum spend on store cupboard stuff I know we will use etc, saves any additional charges and fuel to get to the supermarket. Also use the local butcher, you really need less meat than the portions normally provided, and when they know what you like and what you want to spend often give you a good deal as a regular.

I always buy clothes for our son on eBay, I got his whole 18-24 month wardrobe for less than £20 a few weeks ago. I know friends who will have spent that on one pair of legging. DS could ruin them in ten minutes with chilli for tea or a day in the garden! He always looks lovely, I spend time searching out good quality brands and just get the ones which others missed for some reason.

I do my food shop online with a list. That makes it easier to avoid buying things I don't need just because they're on special offer or catch my eye. Often I've bought everything I need and then have to top up with special offers to get to the minimum spend! That's when I search on offers on my favourite products so I can stock up.

We are very careful about where we shop and buy food in season or from the supermarkets own range. We try to grow our own veg to help with the food bill. I never buy big brand nappies, they cost a fortune, and some supermarket nappies are just as good. We make sure to use up food by use by dates, even if it means some odd meals!

Always shop around for car insurance, and try to get the best deal. I am saving to buy a house and have budgeted carefully to allow me to pay into a help-to-buy ISA each month.

To be able to provide the kids with fun days out I joined the National Trust - its not much each month and we get loads of days out on it, especially in the hols!

I save the child benefit to pay for the school holidays. I put a tenner month on a supermarket saving card toward the Christmas food shop. I start Christmas shopping early. I use the car as little as possible. We eat as cheaply as possible. We take a drink with us whenever we leave the house.

And I fill out as many of these as possible in the hope I might be the lucky one that wins one day!

When food and grocery shopping we always check out the yellow sticker/ discount section to see what we can save on. And mix and match between supermarkets and traditional markets - often far better value for fruit and veg and happier to do deals and discount items towards the end of the day or of buying regularly or in bulk. Bulk buying and batch cooking also save money on the weekly shop and mean you can have a choice of nutritious and easy to cook family favourites for a fraction of the price!

For bigger household items, we've bought ex display furniture at 10% of the list price by shopping around and checking when stores are about to change things in their shop-floor displays. Bargains include a wool fabric fireside armchair for £90 instead of £900; an 8ft extending solid oak table, four chairs and matching bench for about £180 rather than £1800.

And final tip concerns price matching/ bartering - and not being embarrassed to ask! At the baby show at the weekend we saw an item we wanted (a baby carrier) with a " show price " of £135. A little online research and we found a site selling it with free postage for nearly £10 less. For the cost of ten minutes finding the supervisor with authority to agree a deal, we got them to approve and match the item. Saving £10 and meaning we could take the item there and then!

Overpay the mortgage. On track to pay back three years early at the moment! That's a lot less interest!