Can I save any more money?!

Sarahsaver

I have no car, but i have started putting stuff on ebay. Just about to check how my 'house clearance' lot is doing;)
I will do a quick update, I have managed to save a bit, and every little helps!
NTL have given me free line rental, £8.99 broadband for 3 months going up to 17.99 after still with free phone line
got a new mobile so i get 500 minutes of calls anytime, so i won't have to pay extra for fonecalls:) and i get 100 txts a month it also does email but i havent worked that one out yet!!!
if i get cold when im at home in the day I do some hoovering to keep warm! I am quite vigorous.
I have cut down the time I have the hot water on and it seems to be ok so far.
I paid my scottish power bill after one month of usage instead of waiting for a big horror of a quarterly bill.
I am still making soup with odds and ends;)

jo_b_2

Sarahsaver wrote:

I have managed to save on the internet/phone connection by telling ntl i want to leave them. They came back with an offer of 8.99 broadband and free phone line

Well done Sarah! You go girl! Martin would be proud of you.

Maddie

Sarahsaver wrote:

if i get cold when im at home in the day I do some hoovering to keep warm! I am quite vigorous.

I know its not going to have a huge effect, but how much electricity does the hoover use?

I've been reading this thread, but am finding it hard to come up with any ideas at all, so the few I've got might sound silly!

Avoid opening the fridge and freezer as much as possible.

Don't use a hairdryer (apparently they gulp up loads of electricity)

Try to drink mainly water instead of tea/coffee fruit juice or whatever.

See if any friends/neighbours have out of date cans of food hidden in the back of their cupboards, which they would no longer eat.

Did you say you had a wood burning stove? You could probably cook soup/stew etc on top of this instead of using the hobs, could be fun to try anyway!

Have you taken advantage of all bank account opening offers, like the £40 abbey are giving away at the mo?

You say you dont want to accept money for child minding etc, when I was a kid a friend came round for tea after school whilst her mum was at work. My mum didnt get paid, but ws given money todays food costs etc. If you could do this, you could prob feed your whole family on the estimated cost of feeding one child!

Hope this gives you some ideas
Maddie

Sarahsaver

I just have enough on my plate with my own kids!;) It was the cash in hand thing that bothered me.
Will look at the t&c for the account opening stuff.
I am selling things on ebay but i dont think im allowed to place a link here.
Nope its the fires in the living rooms im talking about, but yes the kids ask me now 'light a fire please mummy' and tend to stay in the one room after school til the central heating comes on at 6pm. Have to have it on, this place has very high ceilings and gets v chilly!If i have the oven on i try to fill it then leave the door open after ive finished and switched off, so the heat gets into the room.
The latest suggestions dont sound silly at all, in fact i realised i left my computer printer on all the time so thats off now unless i need it, i have been given a ream of paper and a box of envelopes:)
I also find that if you ask people to fetch things for you, like a sack of spuds, they won't let you pay for them! Like if they say what do you want for xmas/birthday... and you say food/bag of coal(yes i asked for a bag of coal) you get that plus something extra! I dont fancy asking people for out of date food but i do look for reduced items if i go in the co-op or the spar locally.
Still haven't seen the friend with the chickens yet, but i am hoping to get a couple to give us a few eggs!
Can't do without coffee but i do have a filter machine the jug of which is a thermos type thing so one jug will - possibly - last the morning!
As i mentioned one day a week at least for a month my youngest and I are getting a free lunch and childcare as I am involved in a community arts project. I didnt know about the free lunch so its a nice added bonus. We are creating a community patchwork depicting the past and future of local inhabitants:)Oh yes and found i had some long forgotten cashback from a catalogue so i got my daughter a dressing gown that actually FITS her!
Thought about writing a book about all this but didnt want to tread on martin's toes, whaddya think?
'The money detox'
'The money starvation diet'
'Something out of Nothing - the life of a moneysaving family'
best of all is im still positive and i have to say that fellow MSE'rs have helped immensely.

AUSTIN_3

hello, I don't know what area yo uare in but I am in Portsmouth and there is a market research lady that uptill lately I have done 'nappy trials' with(can't do them any more as my little 'un' is now potty trained(well in the day anyhow) and they are always on the lookout for people to have them come to your house and ask them questions and they pay a £5. This is about general things, not just nappies.

I am logged on to the arton moon reasearch facility and they have asked me to do loads of trials(I ticked every box) and if I hadn't been out all day would of taken part in all sorts(by the time I get in they have been filled up).

If you are able, if you see things in the freeads, that you have perhaps seen on ebay, I bought 1-9 friends box set for £50 and flogged them for over £100 on ebay.

Have you visited the CAB just to make sure that you are receving all the benefits that you are entitled to?.

I hope that you are able to make up the short fall and I am sorry my ideas aren't delboy style(millionaire)

Spendless

The milk that you receive. Do you have 2 children under 5 and does that mean 2 lots of milk or not?

Is it getting used up or could you either freeze it or use it for rice pudding as a cheap dessert?

When buying things like vests/t-shirts for your daughter do you buy neutral colours so you can pass on to your younger boys?

Have you got any friends/relatives that pass on out-grown kids clothes to you?

crana999

sarah, this might sound batty, but how well are your windows insulated? I have even heard of people propping up cardboard gainst the windows at night / when the room isnt used to help retain heat. I was thinking of doing it in my room (i live in an 1800s building with what appear to be the original windows..) but i never found a suitably large bit of cardboard, lol.

Alternatively you could line curtains to make them thicker and keep more heat in, if you had any suitable materials? Could be kinda "makeshift"

Have you tried writing to food companies etc asking for samples/coupons? I wrote to a couple and I got several valable coupons and some free full sized products back.. also make sure you complain about anything that isn't up to scratch!

stardoman

"sarah, this might sound batty, but how well are your windows insulated? I have even heard of people propping up cardboard gainst the windows at night / when the room isnt used to help retain heat. I was thinking of doing it in my room (i live in an 1800s building with what appear to be the original windows..) but i never found a suitably large bit of cardboard, lol."

When I was a student, some of my friends put clingfilm over their windows to keep the heat in. Not quite as obvious as cardboard and you'll still get plenty of light in your room.

Mandy.

stardoman

Maddie wrote:

You say you dont want to accept money for child minding etc, when I was a kid a friend came round for tea after school whilst her mum was at work. My mum didnt get paid, but ws given money todays food costs etc. If you could do this, you could prob feed your whole family on the estimated cost of feeding one child!

Hope this gives you some ideas
Maddie

Just wanted to point out that if you don't register as a childminder then this could actually be illegal if you looked after children under the age of 8 in your own home. It is against the law in this country to look after children for more than 2 hours a day on a regular basis (this is classed as 5 times a year I think) for any form of payment. It does not have to be cash, but any payment in kind - so receiving food or even a bunch of flowers could be considered payment in kind. Reciprocal agreements where you look after x's children 2 nights and then x looks after your children for 2 nights are also considered payment in kind.

If you look after children in their home or the children are over 8 then this would currently be allowed, although I understand that this is being looked at.

Mandy.

johannamse

Instead of a book Sarah, why don't you do a column in a mag or paper. I read the Times and there are loads of diarys in there. Diary of a local GP, diary of a young 20 something and money, diary of a man trying to move house etc. Why don't you ring up the Money section heads of all the papers and offer ot do a weekly column (a la sex and the city). Diary of a family living off of pennies... You seem (in my humble opinion), to be a fairly funny person, who although is in the middle of a nightmare still finds things funny. The column would make great reading, and you can tell funny stories of watercress and potoatoe soup (that some poeple wont believe).