| Archive for The Potting Shed A forum to discuss Crafts, Cooking, Gardening, Countryside, Livestock and Pets |
| Jellycat |
Saving money and general frugalityI'm not quite sure where to put this, so here seems good
I don't know about the rest of you, but we're feeling the pinch a bit after the festivities and I think it's a good time to use any money saving strategies we may have. I have a couple of ideas that I'd like to share, and it'd be great to hear everyone else's tricks and tips for saving mo ney and making what there is stretch as far as possible. So for starters, OH was telling me a while back about a lady he'd heard interviewed on the radio who had amassed nearly £3000 in a year by putting aside any money she saved buying Buy-One-Get-One-Free things in the supermarket. Sounds like a plan to me, so that's what I'm doing - whenever I buy something that's reduced, or free, I put the saved money into a pot at home. So far, I think there's about £25.00 in there. I'm trying very hard to put a tenner in the pot every Saturday, to start saving for next Christmas. We try this most years and most years, we spend it way before Christmas on 'emergencies' 
I'm keeping a spending diary. I'm really not sure where all our money goes, so this will help me find out what I'm actually spending on what and where I can cut back. Finally, for now, I'm making a bigger effort than I have been doing recently to make sure we don't waste anything, especially food. Listening to the Food Programme on radio 4 on Sunday, I heard some boffin or other (can't remember who) explaining that the CO2 emitted in the production/transportation and rotting of the one third of the food we buy that's thrown away, is the equivalent to the emissions from twenty percent of the cars in the UK. I don't think I've ever thrown away a third of what I've bought, but now I'm aiming for not throwing any food into the dustbin (except bones - unless anyone can tell me a use for them?!). I seem to have rambled on a bit
So, let's have your useful hints and ploys for saving/stretching the pennies 
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| Aqui |
http://www.frugal.org.uk/
i do some stuff suggested on here. turn off the kettle before it's boiled, buy from chaity shops/ebay, sell on ebay/amazon, try not to waste food, cook things from scratch, fill the oven when i'm using it, turn lights off, turn the tv and dvd off at the mains when not in use (ie - most of the time)... um.... |
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| Jellycat |
Fab site Aqui - thanks for posting that.
I can see I'm not going to get a lot of work done today....
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| mc55 |
we've started to do shopping lists, instead of wandering aimlessly around supermarkets and we've listed the contents of our freezer so we can plan meals a little better. | ||
| Kathy |
I try to avoid any food waste by making burgers or soup from left overs. Stale bread gets whizzed into crumbs and frozen. Everything is cooked from scratch and the only tins I buy are tomatoes and occasionally Whole Earth bake beans.
Most of our clothes, including offsprings, comes from charity shops and "hand me downs" from friends and family. The heating is used minimally, extra jumpers and socks are used if it gets cold. Presents are made, as are cards. We use old cards to make new and are also lucky to have a friend that works for a HUGE card company so we get freebies of old stock (which are supposed to go in the bin). Our biggest expense are the cars of which we have 2. One is going to have to go in exchange for a smaller one, we'll save on everything there. We grew some food last year but should be much better this year as we'll get the whole season in. I don't use soap, I wash my hair then use the lather to wash the rest of me!! I'm obsessive about switching off plugs at the wall, led lights run away with a fair amount of money over time. The electric kettle is used to fill up the large one which sits on the stove ready for instant use. How many times do you boil the kettle then go away and forget you wanted tea then come back and boil it again? I've heard that storm kettles are great things too. I'm sure there's more we could do so I'll check that website out! |
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| Cabbagepatch |
Some really good tips there, I think we all know lots of them but its good to have a bit of a kick up the wotsit!
I try to be very frugal with leftovers but think I could do better. However, anything we don't eat either goes in the dogs, cats or chickens so nothing to the landfill. Kathy, I have a storm kettle which I used to use everyday, seem to have got out of the habit the last year or so (   ). It is great, a few bits of paper and one or two twigs and within minutes, boiling water.
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| Libby |
I too want to make my housekeeping money go further, it seems to run out sooner and sooner!
Out of my housekeeping I transfer £50 a month into a building society in a town I very rarely go to, and there it stays till Christmas, and yes it did cover ALL of Christmas expenditure food booze, pressies the lot. I had no overdraft or credit card bill this year!! Well chuffed.
I want to buy better food, meat and veg etc. My veg garden was very poor this year, and I sadly admit I have not watched Hughs programme, why? Because my youngests main food is Chicken, she is very fussy due to Aspegers mainly chicken, potatoes, cauli, bacon, white bread, eggs (mine ) sweetcorn and some salad leaves, no tomatoes or onions only raw carrot. I think thats it. Oh yes and tuna! As you can see it is very hard to make a menu!
But I shall follow this thread with interest and open mind
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| Jellycat |
Agreed mc55, meal plans and a proper shopping list make the shopping loads cheaper I find. I write a meal plan for a fortnight at a time (so I don't have to do the dreaded supermarket shop very often!) and I find that as well as saving money, it also makes it a whole lot easier to make sure we're eating a good, balanced diet.
Our vegetable garden wasn't particularly productive last year (not for us anyway - the resident rabbits seem to have had a field day ) but it should be better this year. We still have plenty of leeks and beetroot in there, which I'll have to think of a way of using....
Libby, we're aiming for the same sort of Christmas savings as you this year, but it's a tenner a week in a pot - I might transfer it to a building society when there's enough in there, but I daren't set up a DD for it at the moment....! Another small tip - add a bit of water to the end of shampoo/shower gel etc. bottles and make sure you get the last drop of 'stuff' out - my OH is dreadful for saying a bottle's empty when there's two or three more 'servings' in it! |
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| Libby |
Actually theres one of those green shops in that town with my Christmas savings that you take your empty containers, shampoo, conditioner, washup liquid etc and fill them up with all non animal tested etc, but still pricy!
Its hard to get the ethical to fit in with your allowances
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| Jellycat |
Too true - a constant battle... We use Faith in Nature for shampoo/soap etc. It's not cheap, but you can buy in bulk from there website (http://www.faithinnature.co.uk/), which reduces the cost a bit (and reduces the amount of packaging I have to deal with) - they also do laundry/washing up liquid etc and I currently have three 5 litre containers under the kitchen sink of washing up liquid, laundry liquid and fabric conditioner, which should last us for months
It's b****y difficult to balance ethics and price, but not impossible and there are some things where I can't bring myself to compromise (organic dairy products, for instance). I'd love to be able to buy more stuff in bulk but we've nowhere to store it, but that's another issue altogether! |
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| Cabbagepatch |
JC, do you know how Faith in Nature compares with products such as Ecover for price, pereformance etc?
Just wondered if you had tried different makes before settling on one. |
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| Jellycat |
Their washing up/laundry liquids (called 'Clear Spring') are much, much better than Ecover. I believe there's a question mark over Ecover's animal testing policy too, but I've not read up about it yet...
I did used to use Ecover, because I can get it in our local town, but I wasn't happy with them and was glad to find Clear Spring online. There's another company called BioD which is also pretty good for household cleaners etc. We have a Green Shop about 25 miles away which stocks all of this stuff but it's a bit of a hike...
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| Kathy |
We use Bio D CP having read about Ecover not actually being so ethical. I prefer their products anyway and the toilet cleaner is great!
Even when we were on benefits and the kids were younger I was able to afford decent cleaning stuff though I couldn't afford organic as it was a lot more expensive then, I bought local as much as possible. I think it depends on the way you eat too, tins, jars and ready meals are always going to push your household bills up as is a large butchers bill. Substituting a couple of meat dishes a week for veggie dishes helps the pocket, I did this even before turned I veggie.
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| Libby |
I can see this is going to be a great thread!
We already do about 4 days veggie, 3 days meat, there are 2 local market garden shops which I have started to use and there products are so much fresher, I plan to cycle there when the weather improves! Give T her due she will try new meals, but if she doesn't like it they won't pass her lips again. I have started her cooking one meal a week for us, which has helped and she does enjoy it, so 'small steps' we will get there in the end! I will look into the "Faith in Nature products. With your inspiration and knowledge I am determined to be far greener and make my money go further this year
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| Cabbagepatch |
Interesting stuff indeed. Will be checking out the different products and comparing them this evening.
I try to use natural cleaning products such as bicarb, vinegar etc but there are times when something with a bit more pizazz is required! |
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| Aqui |
i've ordered some faith in nature stuff now (not exactly saving money!)
kathy - do you buy bio d online? there website has fallen over! |
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| Libby |
There are 2 shops that stock the Faith in Nature products nearby so I will go and buy the smaller ones to try out. I must admit I thought £4.25 for 22 washes not bad!
Has anyone used either soap nuts or eco balls? The eco balls look expensive but on a blog somewhere out in blogosphere a lady used some of the drier balls washed and dried towels in tumbler with out the balls then did exactly the same load with the drier balls and they made a big difference!! I know we aren't supposed to use tumblers I actually don't the majority of the time I have too much heat coming of my rayburn!!!!!! |
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| Cabbagepatch |
Aqui, you ahead of me. Planned to make an order today but have yet to get around to doing it. I know what you mean about not saving money....I would be really interested to know the costs of buying small amounts at the dreaded supermarket v buying bulk online. |
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| Aqui |
libby - i have ecoballs. they work fine. i've stopped using them on j's nappies as they came out a little bit stained - powder works better. and you should use them on a quick program, so it takes 30mins on my machine rather than 2.5hours.
just need to find some baby shampoo now - we had used homemade soap on j's hair which works well, but the past few baths he's rubbed his eyes and got soap in them and screamed. poor thing. |
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| Aqui |
we're going to have to try kathy's leftovers burgers one day.
what i do is - i try to make double batches of pasta sauce/curry etc and freeze a portion. but sometimes i makes 1.5 or 2.5 meals by mistake, so the rogue half goes in a pot in the freezer. next time i make another spare half, it goes in the same pot, so we occassionally have a bizarre sauce of half curry, half pasta sauce! |
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| Kathy |
I buy mine from the farm/shop/cafe but you get get it here. http://ecotopia.co.uk/index.jsp?c...lk-buying-biod&pg=1&mnu=1
I've got soap nuts but haven't tried them yet, I'll report back when I do. |
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| Jellycat |
I've used soap nuts on the washing machine and they were utterly useless....now we use Clear Spring laundry liquid and BioD fabric conditioer. | ||
| Libby |
Righty ho! | ||
| mogs |
my mother, bless her, was born in 1913 but has been gone now since 1984, but all her life, mainly thru neccesity was very frugal.
she passed this on to me and my brothers. there was always a policy of '' mend or make do '' things like patching up jeans that were wearing thin at the knees or crotch, hand me down clothes, washing hair in rain water ( makes hair fantastically soft and no need for conditioner, which wasn't thought of when i was young ) saves valuable water resources in the summer too, we used to bath in a tin bath and the water was always put onto the veggie patch in dry weather. veggies were always home grown from tatties to broad beans, whos pods when very young can be cooked like runer beans. when my children wer young i used to try hard at saving or reusing things, because money was tight. We used to shop on a thurdsay evening, when my husband got his pay, and Friday used to be my baking day. i would make cakes and scones, pasties and pies for the week. we would always have a roast on a sunday, and any meat or veg that was left over would go into a monday pie......lol...sort of like a shepherds pie...everything thrown in with a bit of seasoning topped off with mash potato......the kids loved it...even my mother was impressed....lol bones etc, tho not chicken, would be fed to the dog, and to bulk out the dogfood potatoes would be added, that were added to the pot when cooking for us all. i would buy sacks of onions to make onion soup which we had for lunch most days with a fresh bread roll or two, and my mother showed me a useful tip when bread is going a bit stale.....dip it in cold water for a second or two and then place in the oven...it comes out warm and really fresh like new baked bread....lol... another tip..... why use a tumble dryer when you have radiators? |
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| Jojo |
I bet it all tasted lovely to Mogs
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| mogs |
sure did....lol...those were the days....
but it does make you think just jow people managed in the wars when there was very little of anything...... maybe we should all take a leaf out of their book...??? |
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| Cabbagepatch |
I have to say that I feel quite fascinated by that era, make do and mend, and every meal was fully appreciated. I think our generation could learn an awful lot and be the better for it. |
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| Libby |
ditto, cabbagepatches comment, totally fascinating. Plus families where really families in those days.
I like the idea of the stale bread dipped in water, I will try that. |
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| Bovey Belle |
With stale bread you can cube it and fry it for croutons; turn into breadcrumbs for coating fish; make stuffing with it; add it to home-made sausages; make wonderful Bread Pudding; add it to crumble mix for fruit or savoury crumbles. It also freshens up after a short burst in the microwave. My mum used to put cornflakes which had gone a bit soft (we had a damp larder I think!) in the oven! I've never felt the need to do that . . .
We have a Hergom (bit like an Aga, only Spanish). We have two Betty Maids which are on either side of the room. The damper washing goes on the one nearest the stove, and the nearly dry stuff goes on the other one. Small things such as knickers and socks go on the rail of the Hergom or else draped over the copper pans we have on the top. It also dries horse rugs a treat. I don't possess a tumble drier. I use leftovers for pies, curries etc. If I have a little portion of mince left, that will make the topping for a couple of individual pizzas, topped with cheese. Little left-over bits of curry, mince or whatever get used as the fillings for Cornish pasties. When I am clearing the freezer out, I make freezer soup, from all the odds and ends of veg which lurk at the back of the freezer. I make a basic ratatouille style sauce. This acts as the top of a pizza, a lovely sauce for pasta, the base of wonderful soup and makes a curry go further. Any plastic bags I have from fruit or bread wrappers, I wash and reuse to store opened packets of cheese, home-baked bread, half onions etc in inside the fridge. I also cut them open and oil to put over dough when it is rising. Well washed, they last several times. Any reduced double cream at the shops, can be put in the Kenwood and turned into butter, which can then be frozen until needed. There's a wonderful book I have called The Tightwad's Gazette. It's American, but I got mine from Amazon. It is well worth investing in a copy. |
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| alison |
BB
Tightwads is fantastic isn't it.
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| Kathy |
Oooo, lot's of good tips here to save even more money.
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| Cabbagepatch |
I hope nobody minds me giving this a Bump.
We are having a serious examination of our lifestyle right now! |
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| Jellycat |
Not at all CP
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| Jellycat |
In fact ...
I mentioned in my first post that we were saving the 'other half' of BOGOF offers and reduced items. I've taken to putting this money into the building society at the end of the month, along with the tenner a week, which we've managed to keep up with. I had a quick add-up at the end of April and up until then, we'd saved £91.00, excluding the tenner a week It's not been too hard either... apart from when I got a bargain bulk order of contact lens cleaner and owed the pot nearly twenty quid! It's all adding up nicely though, so I reckon it's well worth doing
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