Welcome to MoneySaving Old Style - (Read Me First)

Welcome

Hello and welcome to MoneySaving Old Style

This is all about depending on older, more basic and often cheaper ways of running the home, not relying so much on modern consumerism, processed foods or off the shelf solutions to achieve the standard we want in our everyday lives.

Please share with us, your ideas, your hints and tips, whether it's cooking from scratch, cleaning for pennies, gardening, homemade gifts, how to shop and the works really. Of course EVERYONE is welcome to contribute and to ask questions, share recipes etc. and for the enthusiasts there's breadmaking and even keeping your own chickens.

Old Style, with a New Style Flair.

We do hope you enjoy the board.


What is Old Style?

Old style is about taking charge of the money you have saved elsewhere on MoneySaving by using the many ideas collected here. It's about taking control of the home areas of your life

Old Style isn't all OLD. We're happy to use modern up to date things like Slow Cookers, Microwaves, Breadmakers and more. We like to re-use, reduce, re-cycle. We save money (and, by coincidence time and energy) by cooking double and freezing. What's OLD about this forum is that we try not to rely on ready made instant meals. We try to shop with thrift in mind and not blindly throw the nearest and easiest thing into the shopping basket and barely glance at the total in the till as we hand over our credit card. We try to set and keep budgets and ask ourselves questions like "Is this something I would like to have, or is it something genuinely useful?"


Please note: You can't possibly be expected to make all the changes you'll see suggested here in the various threads at once. It's impossible. You wouldn't expect to pass your final exams after one day at school, and you shouldn't expect to be able to do the same here in Old Style.

The best approach is a step by step one. Pick one or two things that you think will be of best help to you and do those until they become normal. Then pick the next best and so on. As you go you'll find that everything gets easier and you'll be patting yourself on the back and actively looking for new ways in no time at all.



Our Monthly Challenges

We challenge ourselves each month to stick to our budgets and even to keep pin money.

The Grocery Challenges are to challenge yourself to shop to a budget. Help, support, and advice is readily available.

Before joining the challenge you'll find THIS POST a helpful guide.

Pin Money Savings keep a check on all of the savings you make, coupons you use and put the money towards a new slow cooker or a family holiday.

Before joining the challenge you'll find THIS POST a helpful guide


Where to start?

A good place to start is with one of the challenges.

You could start with the store cupboard challenge to use up everything in your food cupboards, fridge and freezer to give you a kick start in using up all those things hiding in dark corners.

Or you could start with clearing out your cleaning cupboard and replacing the many bottles with just vinegar, bicarb and some essential oils (yes it is possible). Have a look at the Cleaning links

Then you could move onto the Monthly grocery challenge, remembering to use the Menu planning and to put all of your virtual savings into your Pin Money Savings. Have a look at the collections below and use the recipes, slow cooker, and breadmaker threads to help you plan.


Our Collections

We have a varied collection of recipes, economic cleaning tips, breadmaking and slow cookers, how to shop and how to plan a menu to fit your budget.

The indexed save zillions on cleaning thread

Old Style recipe index

Breadmaking, Hints, Tips, etc.

The slow cooker recipe index

How to shop

Menu planning

Indexed Homemade Gifts


You don't have to come back here to find all these collections and challenges again, our Indexed Collections Thread and our Monthly Challenges Thread are both linked on the blue bar at the top of every page. It looks something like this:-


Other useful threads

Feed 6 for £1.32

Garden Produce

Growing your own fruit and veg

My Baby seedlings

In season food

Organic supplies and deliveries near you

Rubber Chicken - there's a great explanation HERE and recipes can be found on the recipe links thread.


Common questions - how do I?


Do a hyperlink?

To do a simple www,example,link Click Here

For a fuller explanation Click Here

For the full pictorial guide by sra Click Here

Do a smiley?

Smilies are the small pictures you see in posts like this one --->

For the guide to using smilies by sra Click Here

Have an avatar?

Avatars are the pictures you see below the person's name in the top left corner of their posts.

For the guide to having an avatars by sra Click Here

The Beginner's Guide

For the site's Beginner's Guide by sra Click Here

The MoneySaving A to Z

For the complete MoneySaving A-Z by sra Click Here


What do all the abbreviations mean?

DD, DS1, MiL, LOL... are all explained:- Click Here