Your best OS find this year??

mummysaver

My most moneysaving thing this year has been doing serious mealplanning and sticking to it!

Also the inspiration and constant support on here for living in an os way, I love it, but don't have many real life friends who opt to live this way! Though more are coming round to the idea now - not sure that it's my example, more likely the credit crunch!

rumncoke

Finding this website & this thread. It has been an absolute eye opener. When I first saw mbaz thread Feed family for £20 for a month I just thought thats nonsense. Shows how much I knew!!!

There have been so many changes since finding this forum that I would be hard pushed to name just 1, but if I had to it would be menu planning.

In Dec. I managed to get all grocery etc plus the extras for Christmas inc beer for my old budget of £275 which I was struggling with before.

Looking forward to having surplus in grocery money to put towards mortgage from now on.

Miss_Piggy_2

I have several:

* Finding this board - don't post much but devour all the info and advice!!

* Washing at 30'c

* Soda Crystals in with washing to reduce washing detergent

* Learning to use leftovers! (just cut up and froze leftover beef and gammon in portion sizes. Last year I threw it!:o )

Miss P
xx

Cat_Addict

Finding the MSE Forums and the OS Board. Cutting back used to be a boring pain in the behind but this makes it fun! I get such a kick out of it it's absolutely lovely!!

daleigha

aarrgghhh - i can think of loads!!

1. soda crystals - saved me a fortune in cleaning products and loving the fume-free oven cleaning qualities of them (no more mr muscle for me!!)
2. soapnuts - saved me lots in laundry costs :j
3. getting my breadmaker after seeing you all rave about them, and i love it!!
4. the fab recipes, especially with me being veggie - i have had lots of inspiration!!:D

xx

2cats1kid

The OS board - has got me back to doing lots of things I had stopped incl. knitting and jam making.

And on a lighter note - baby food jars. Now there is a baby in the family again I am collecting these as they are perfect for little sample jars of jam or chutney as a small gift. I'm liking giving 2 or 3 little jars so there's a fighting chance the person will like something, rather than one big one.

juliapenguin

The OS board - again!

My shopping trolley - I'm so much more careful when I know I've got to pull it home fully loaded! I thought I'd feel frumpy pulling it through town but I feel sort of 'hippy chick' and trendy!

Using up what's in the fridge instead of going shopping every time - I've had some fantastic 'ready steady cook' type concoctions!

Remoska chips. My, oh my. How delicious are they - and dirt cheap as well as much healthier. I've had a big portion for lunch today with leftover Christmas gravy. I AM a student so I've got to eat chips and gravy!!!

Stardrops. Haven't bought any cleaning stuff for 18 months now - I'm still on the same bottle of Stardrops as I use it diluted in old spray bottles.

Refilling handwash bottles with cheap bubble bath - I had some gorgeous stuff from Boots that smelt of coconut but was really cheap. It lasted ages and cost something like 49p.

I'm getting carried away here so I'd better stop!!!

Happy New Year to you all xxxxx

on_a_money_mission

OS -
Stardrops (especially when combined with white vinegar and water in a spray);
a slow cooker (which has allowed me to make cheap cuts of meat taste FABULOUS);
OS recipes (too many to mention all, my most used ones from the board are probably the jam doughnut muffins, which are also great for using homemade jam - thanks all recipe posters!);
jam and pickle making (using either farm shop/market produce or spare fruit and jars from friends);
rediscovering my local market;
avoiding overpriced supermarkets;
rediscovering knitting and discovering rug-making;
charity shops and car boots.

New style:
quidco (£366 and counting);
ultra cheap holidays (through the internet and/or using Tesco vouchers for legoland and £19 a night Travelodge. We've had three holidays this year for less than the cost of one at full price);
selling my old books and junk through ebay/amazon (which paid for the holidays);
free stuff using that MSE board;
competitions using that MSE board (I only enter the odd one but have won a few things!);
mystery shopping;
testing products;
sampling products for word of mouth marketing companies;
comparing prices online;
using Boots points system properly.

I have probably forgotten some stuff -
THANK YOU MARTIN AND THE MSE STAFF, AND ALL THE FORUM POSTERS. :T:T:T

on_a_money_mission

Oops, I forgot fruit picking at the local farm and digging our own veg patch. Old Style!

champys

Some of my top ones are

- the Remoska
- using only half a dishwash tablet per wash
- meal planning
- watering down the washing up liquid and using it from a pretty olive-oil drizzler

and above all, the kind help and support of all other OSers! Thank you all for being there, for all of us :-)