Tips and Quick Questions on “How To Start Being Old Style”

jollymummy

I'm going to watch this thread with interest too. I do a few of the things already mentioned and have a few more. I have a grocery budget each month to cover EVERYTHING, if there is anything left at the end of the month I transfer it into a saving account, it might just be say £13. However, I did this during this year and it's paid for all our Christmas presents and will cover a good part of the grocery bill too. I was so ticked off with worrying about money every January and vowed not to do it again. I've also used £40 worth of vouchers earned from online surveys. We use Tesco vouchers for days out and treats. My 5 year old usually wants to visit Thomasland for his birthday so we use our vouchers.

Last month I checked all our utilities on a price comparison website and cut our home insurance by £200 per year.

I try to use value stuff for all basics, tunned tomatoes, porridge oats, fruit juice, rice, pasta etc.

If the oven is on I'll do three things at once, biscuits, buns, whatever and freeze them. Leftover sad veg goes into homemade soups. We have fruit bowl crumble where I chuck in sad looking apples, plums whatever is left. All peelings go in compost bin for the veg patch in garden or our allotment.

Grow cut and come again salad in plant pots near the kitchen and fresh herbs too.
Much cheaper and less wasteful than buying a bag of salad leaves and throwing half of them away.

I pop our washing on the radiators in the evening to dry instead of using the dryer.

I also use Stardrops to clean the bathroom and kitchen and mop the floors, it's ace!!
Think that's it for now

Good luck.

~GoodLife~

We now have a milkman deliver our milk and juice. We used to just pop into the shop on the way home from work to pick it up when we had run out but would come out with lots of other things we didnt need! We pay slightly more for it but its saved us lots in the long run!!!

LolaLemon

Gothicfairy wrote: »

At the moment I am trying Love your flow eco towels. Working great which was a suprise. I soak them in cold salt water or milk and then wash them and they come totally clean.

I couldn't get on with the mooncup but am now using the jam sponge and that is much easier for me.

Thank you, i was looking at minky, but they are a bit expensive
I looked into the jam sponges, but i didnt know anyone who used them and when i started talking about these 'different' mathods at one of the breastfeeding support groups and found 2 who used mooncups, so i went with that.

adelight wrote: »

[/LIST]
Is enriched soy milk a possible alternative for some or all of your milk? You use so much even a soy milk maker would pay for itself quickly. If the taste is an issue, it's very easy to blend with a little frozen fruit or cocoa powder, or make soy yogurt and blend that with frozen fruit for a smoothie.

herbily wrote: »

Just to add, re soya milk, a litre carton of the value soya milk from Mr Ts or Sainsbugs is around 60p - your son might still need the goat's milk, but if you can stand the soya milk, you could save money. I use it in tea, but it goes funny in coffee, for some reason, and also use it on breakfast cereal.

From what ive read, if you have an allergy to cows milk, your more prone to developing an allergy to soya, so we dont use it regularly, well never as a milk replacement as many brands of soya use apple juice and sweetners to make them more drinkable, and soya rots teeth more quickly
We do use soya yoghurts that are of a custard consistancy. the vanilla is a great custard alternative for on weetabix lol

Plus (the biggy here) they taste disgusting lol we really only use milk for cereal, cakes and drinking milkshake/hotchocolate


But thank you for your suggestions

LolaLemon

ChocClare wrote: »

I don't know if you've already tried this (if so, just ignore me!) but you can freeze goat's milk very successfully - I'm just thinking that if you bought larger sizes you could decant into smaller plastic bottles and put in freezer - it keeps about 6 months - and that might work out a cheaper way for you to supply your son's nurseries with "his carton" for the week. It would also enable you to stock up while prices are a bit lower - goat's milk is on special offer at Tesco's this week for example (if you shop there)...;)

Hia thanks for your reply
I do this if i have a full carton left or we are going away for a few days, so i dont need to rush to shops on way home, but i can see the difference when it defrosts, little white floaters, just the fat not merged properly
Reminds me of breastmilk when it defrosts.
Plus i dont have a lot of room in my freezer, its full of reduced meats lol

Doom_and_Gloom

LolaLemon wrote: »

and soya rots teeth more quickly

That's news to me. My dentist knows I drink soya milk and hasn't said this and believe me she would if it was a problem. Raw cane sugar is used in some as as sweetener though so that's possible, I personally drink the unsweetened for this reason, but it won't be the soya.

You could use enriched oat milk because at £1.18/L (based on a brand called Oatly and bought in Mr S) it is cheaper than the goats milk by 20p a litre (a saving of £1.80 a week if you buy 7 cartons a week). It doesn't from what I know contain any added sugar so shouldn't be a problem for teeth either and it contains 300mg of calcium in each 250ml glass so calcuim wouldn't be an issue. It is also enriched with vitamin D and B12 so again they wouldn't be a problem.

There is also Rice dream rice milk with added calcium at £1.30/L (so cheaper than goats milk by 8p a litre; saving 56p/week) but it isn't enriched with vitamin D or B12.

brook2jack

All infant Soya formulas have added sugars not just cane sugars but fructose and other sugars. They can cause horrific dental problems which is why dieticians etc are keen to limit their use particularly as most children lose their lactose intolerance by around 18 months. Very few commercial adult soy milks are unsweetened so most will cause decay.

The oatly drink has the equivalent of 8 g (spoons) of sugar per glass and the rice dream 11 g (spoons) of sugar per glass. Just because the sugars are not from cane sugar does mean they won't cause decay... they will , in the same way that fresh fruit won't cause decay but processing fruit to produce fruit juice liberates "natural " sugars that will decay. Rice milk is particularly notorious for causing decay so treat it as one of your three sugar attacks a day and don't drink oat or rice milk at night or inbetween meals.

LolaLemon

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

That's news to me. My dentist knows I drink soya milk and hasn't said this and believe me she would if it was a problem. Raw cane sugar is used in some as as sweetener though so that's possible, I personally drink the unsweetened for this reason, but it won't be the soya.

You could use enriched oat milk because at £1.18/L (based on a brand called Oatly and bought in Mr S) it is cheaper than the goats milk by 20p a litre (a saving of £1.80 a week if you buy 7 cartons a week). It doesn't from what I know contain any added sugar so shouldn't be a problem for teeth either and it contains 300mg of calcium in each 250ml glass so calcuim wouldn't be an issue. It is also enriched with vitamin D and B12 so again they wouldn't be a problem.

There is also Rice dream rice milk with added calcium at £1.30/L (so cheaper than goats milk by 8p a litre; saving 56p/week) but it isn't enriched with vitamin D or B12.

brook2jack wrote: »

All infant Soya formulas have added sugars not just cane sugars but fructose. They can cause horrific dental problems which is why dieticians etc are keen to limit their use particularly as most children lose their lactose intolerance by around 18 months. Very few commercial adult soy milks are unsweetened so most will cause decay.

The oatly drink has the equivalent of 8 g (spoons) of sugar per glass and the rice dream 11 g (spoons) of sugar per glass. Just because the sugars are not from cane sugar does mean they won't cause decay... they will. Rice milk is particularly notorious for causing decay so treat it as one of your three sugar attacks a day and don't drink oat or rice milk at night or inbetween meals.

Thanks for these
I have tried both rice and oat milk, both are erm.... disgusting to say the least lol
I am sort of resigned to the fact that im paying through the nose for milk, but we dont eat cheese or a lot of yogurt, soo it kinda evens itself out if i think of it as all our dairy sources but still extrememly expensive.

My wee mini dream is to have a goat, but i dont really see myself milking an animal and i dont want to move, i have a small gardena nd i dont think my neighbours would be too happy

23rdspiral

herbily wrote: »

Just to add, re soya milk... I use it in tea, but it goes funny in coffee, for some reason, and also use it on breakfast cereal.

i know this one! it's beause while you brew your tea, or poke the bag, the water is cooling down just a bit. with coffee, there's no waiting so you add the soya straight away and it sort of curdles and goes like little noodles on the surface or all grainy.

so, simply wait a minute before adding soya milk to coffee.:)

rozmister

I think I should start by confessing I am a beginner to money saving of any variety. I am currently working on a sandwich from my degree and finally faced up to the fact I've run up a lot of student debt with student overdrafts; £6000 in fact!! (Down to £5,600 already though!) As I will have to start paying lots of interest on this when I graduate I am now in some mad race against time to pay off as much as possible especially as my boyfriend keeps talking about 'when' we buy a house together and while he has savings I have debts!! He has mentioned that it would be 'his' house because he'd pay the deposit and I really don't like the idea so I want to be in a position where I can contribute too.

Anyway I digress, having never been good at Money Saving I was hoping all of you guys who have got it mastered could advise me on little things that go a way to saving the pennies? I don't have much to draw on so I welcome anything however small. So far my one idea was to put my electric heater on a timer plug to save electricty. Really simple things like that have never occurred to me before so however obvious and basic it seems to you I won't be doing it!! Help me please!!

zippychick

great tips one liners is a great thread

read this thread for loads of links !

so many links i dont want to overwhelm you. Just spend a couple of days browsing and you will see the regular threads pop up

Zip

Oh - welcome! The debtfreewannabe board may be useful for you too & tips and quick questions on being Old Style - ill merge this later