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[MSE Martin]

What's this all about?

A few week’s ago, Terry who runs the Radio 2 allotment was telling me on the programme how much he’d saved by teaming together with other allotment holders to buy seeds. This seemed to be an idea that correctly grown and nurtured could bear fruit (sorry!).

Please share your stories and suggestions

The aim is to find all the ways you can team up with friends and family to save cash; whether you’ve club together to buy seeds, share a car or use each others’ wireless broadband.

To add your ideas, please post below. Please put, the idea, how much you can save and any relevant links.

[MOG]

15 years ago my neighbour and I formed a Garden Club in our village simply to get discount on seeds.

All the major seed firms offer discount to garden clubs, the greater your order the greater the discount. We order from Dobies and in Year 1 we got 35% off and now we achieve 45 to 50% with about 20 members submittting orders. Until this year all orders had to be combined onto a big 'Master Order' and the seeds arrived in a big box and had to be sorted but this year we just send in the individual orders and Dobies deliver the seeds to the members directly via Royal Mail.

Our club keeps a few % for running expenses and the members get a great deal. The club is now the biggest and most active in the village too!!

[teeb]

If 3 or 4 of you are going to the same place on a train, First ScotRail offer "Friends Fares"; a discount when you buy the tickets all together.

My brother and 2 friends got a £40 return to Aberdeen from Glasgow, for example, which saves a large chunk of money [works out as £13.33 return per person].

[santashelper]

morrisons do a lot of bogof offers on every day items and many others so if you go shopping with a friend or sister and get a lot of bogof offers you could take it in turns each week for one of you to get free shopping or split the cost of the items you have paid for making it half price.

a lot of supermarkets are doing offers to compete but i have always found morrisons to have the most on at any one time.

if the offers are for tinned foods that last a while you can also start putting items away for special occassions ie easter, christmas, without having to spend more money during these expensive periods in the year.

[Redbedhead]

We have Costco membership and think the meat there particularly is good. However as there is only 2 of us and we can only fit in a small freezer there is a limit to how much of those type of things we could buy, even when they were on offer.

So we teamed up with my Mum and her partner and when there is an offer on we are interested in, we call them and see if they want to go halves. They generally say yes, so we buy the bulk pack and split it between us.

[PaleScene]

My mum is setting up as a Fair Trader (the scheme is run by Traidcraft I believe) which means she will source Fairtrade goods and others in the community can buy through her thus avoiding postage, and should it get to large quantities, I think a discount kicks in.

[fsdss]

Days out

during school summer holidays my friend and i prebook days out together and purchase a family ticket (saves usually a little bit).
not very often do we get charged for all 7 of us together and are often given a discount too when turning up i.e. we went to sealife centre bought family ticket, min 4 person (which saved about £15). then we got the other 2 in on a bogof and a discount in total we saved about £30 than going in seperately

[Motu]

when my mobile contract came to an end of its half price monthly payment i cancelled my contract but not before i got my brother to apply for a phone(he only uses pay as you go for emergencys) citing me as his recommended by a friend. i got £20 for this. i then put the chip form the new phone in mine (i like my phone!) and got a further 18months at half price. the bill goes to him so i set up a standing order to pay the standard fee and he emails me if there is anything extra(gone over the free minutes). dont forget to write on your calender the dates to claim your redemption fees or you will lose them and gain nothing . he then mails off the latest bill to get the money back which he then transfers to my bank. ps i think he agreed to this after i saved him a fortune by getting him to remortgage after reading this site

[jordylass]

I have friends in the states who are members of a cooperative for buying things like rice, flour, lentils etc. I'd love to join something similar but don't know of anything, does anyone have anything like this in their local area?

[bev b]

We have oil heating in our new house (also had it in our old house) we usually run low then have the tank filled as its cheaper per litre the more you order, as our new neighbours also have oil heating we will be ordering together next time and benefit from cheaper oil per litre because of it.
I have ordered soapnuts from Germany (ebay) for a group of people on a forum and this worked out extremely cheap even after postage. (edited to add nearly half price including postage cost!)
I would like to find a local mill to source my bread flour from but don't know enough people who bake regularly enough to warrant it .

[CL]

I suppose an obivious one is getting three or four people together to order from a website to save on postage, for example for ink for printers or blank discs

[DAME]

I have a tennis partner at my gym who joined with another friend as a 'couple' since the club offers a discount for couples memberships.

My husband and I joined this way and save about £10 per month.

[angieth]

if a group of people are going on a night out to a club and you know which club you are going to ,phone the club a couple of days before hand and say that such and such amount of people(the more the better,8/10 etc) are coming to the club for one of the groups birthday and is there any "offers" on for a group,you may get a discount or get in free(on the odd occassion we use to get a free bottle as well)

[carolbee]

just a little one - a friend and I bought a large sack of onions from the farm shop, way before xmas, think about 10 for £4.

could be worth thinking about for potatoes if you are like us, just a couple, to share with family/friends?

[egarobar]

In our area, West Wales, we (and a lot of friends) use heating oil (kerosene) to heat our homes. This week, a dozen of us got together to buy oil - and thanks to a little bargaining and a few friendly words, my wife got the price reduced by 2p per litre. That means that an average tankful (1000 litres) is £20 cheaper.

There is a website called boilerjuice.co.uk which does a similar thing online; you can register a group of people in the same area, and get a discount as a result. Or, if you don't know your neighbours that well, you can still get a discount from them (probably not so much) if others in the area happen to be buying oil the same weekend.

But we think it's friendlier to do it by getting people together, and one of us ringing up the oil company and chatting them up!

This is people power as it ought to be. I recommend you get to know your neighbours! Most of us need the same things...

We also buy as a group from a healthfood wholesaler, once every 6 weeks or so. Some of us get organic veg delivered every week to a dropoff point at the nearest farm, where we bump into each other on delivery night. It's all about people!

[ebb'n'flo]

being lucky enough (?!) to have quite a few family members living in same locality, I started a scheme over the Christmas period which is similar to the babysitting circles of late, or maybe not so late, whereby you get credit for taxi-ing one or more family/friends to and from a venue, and then they return the favour with consideration for distance and time. Ie after midnight scores pretty high in my book! Setting out to collect when it is cold and dark, it helps to think ahead to the time when you can call in the credit.
It is important to be flexible and so far has worked really well and allows us to have a drink without worry about the cost of a taxi or having to drive. Give it a go, hope it works for you.

[Savvy_Sue]

Originally Posted by DAME

I have a tennis partner at my gym who joined with another friend as a 'couple' since the club offers a discount for couples memberships.

My husband and I joined this way and save about £10 per month.

You beat me to it! So I'll just stress that you don't have to be any kind of couple, or live at the same address, or ever go together again once you've signed up, although I think they do want just one standing order.

DH has rejoined his gym as half of a couple: the other half is another friend from church. He's set up a standing order for half the total cost into our account.

[flowerofscotland]

When supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsburys send me money off vouchers e.g. £7 off when you spend £70 I usually combine shopping lists with my mum. I've got a "till spit" from Tesco which I plan to use tomorrow in this way. And best of all she gives me full value for her share of the shopping so the saving is all mine! I do always offer to share the discount of course.

[Edinburghlass]

I'd share with Terry from the Radio2 allotment any day, I love listening to him

A signed photo would be nice Martin next time you see him

Family Rail Card covers loads of people and you can have another named adult on it who isn't necessarily family or same address but you do have to take a child on each journey with you.

[Haycorns]

We shared bark to put on the garden. We had a lorry load delivered and we all mucked in a wheelbarrowed it until both gardens were done.