Lots more Sneaky Ways to save the pennies

greengoblin

Also for hair washing - wet through, rub in baking soda until slippery and rinse out with diluted cider vinegar. Vinegar smell disappears after 10 minutes promise! Tend to find it more eco friendly than most shampoos and I always have lots of the raw ingredients around. Fun for doing with children as well as it fizzes on your head!

elliewild

I had an electricity free day yesterday, it went really well and taught me to appreciate how much I waste by not switching stuff off. It was really nice sat with my husband with the candles on in the eve. In fact we've decided to do it twice a year, it was quite fun! Just switched off everything the night before and then avoided electricity.

stressedoutmother

Hello. I need all these tips as I have 4 boys!!

I buy all their clothes in sales e.g. I have just stocked up on thick socks in the sale at t3sco, I'll put them away til needed in Nov. I buy all seasonal stuff this way like shorts, swimmers, gloves etc (that's after hand me downs & if it's beyond repair!).

Another thing I do is bake a load of spuds, first night have a jkt spud, next night make mash and have potato skins on the third - all from same batch! Mind, for me that means cooking about 25 spuds in one go! I am sure it saves a bit of time/energy along the way!!

Hth xx

cottage_retreatist

Hello everyone! My first post on this board - I have tried to read through it all - some great tips!! So please forgive me if I repeat what other people have said already but here are a few of my sneaky ways to save:

• Buy value items like teabags or pasta and then decant into the fancy jars (my OH when we're in the shops would not be seen dead buy value teabags but I just buy them when we do a big shop - put them in a fancy jar and he has never never noticed the difference - probably because I've been doing this for a few years now!!!)
• I don't have any cleaning products except value polish, value disinfectant, value cream cleaner and a big jar of value vinegar which I dilute with water in an old spray bottle - it is amazing the cleaning powers of vinegar - i use it for the kitchen and also the tables in the living room and it also is great for spraying to diffuse tobacco smoke!
• I use value baby bath for shaving my legs and it is amazing - the last bottle lasted a year - at only 20p!!
• To keep portion control down so OH doesn't eat/drink everything in sight, if I buy in bulk (because its cheaper) i only take out maybe two beer cans form a pack of 20, put in the fridge and then when he's drunk them he doesn't know how many more there are and I can regulate his drinking and how much we buy snacks and alcohol!
• To do our clothes washing I do 3/4 soda crystals to a 1/4 non-bio and for fabric softener i do only a drop and then dilute with a splosh of white distilled vinegar (for light colours) - best ever washing for my clothes and it means I've had a 50-wash box of persil for almost a year and it still isn't finished!
• i try and only use half a sheet of kitchen towel at a time and if it can be re-used i stick it back in the roll to use for later (if its still dry)
• I always check the thermostat if OH has turned the heating on (obvs not in this weather!!) - and turn down the temperature - he always has it on a ridiculous temp like 28 degrees so I always turn it down to 18 or 19!! Then make him put a jumper on!!!
• I always make giant pots of food then freezer making sure I use up all the veg in the fridge - if i don't the scrag ends generally get forgotten about and then thrown away - so if i use it all at once i know it won't be wasted!
• always keep my silver pennies in a jar and in the mornings if i know i need to top up my oyster card i use those coins to do it so I don't have to put a minimum 5 quid on from my card - and it means i'm spending them and it's not wasted money just sitting there

I can't think of any more for now!! :rotfl:
Hope I haven't just said everything that has been said before!
Hugs
C-R

Uniscots97

If you are going to a fast food place etc then what I do is make sure there's no ice in the drinks. Means you get a full glass of juice and you can share. I worked out for us to go to McDs it was cheaper us getting one large meal and a burger then we share the chips and the drink. Also its sometimes cheaper buying 2 burgers for OH from the £saver menu than buying a big burger.

northwest1965

I was just wondering, I have a spray bottle of white vinegar/water. Could I use malt vinegar? I am having trouble finding cheap white vinegar at the moment.

cottage_retreatist

northwest1965 wrote: »

I was just wondering, I have a spray bottle of white vinegar/water. Could I use malt vinegar? I am having trouble finding cheap white vinegar at the moment.

hey northwest1965

I use malt vinegar - its actually cheaper than distilled white vinegar (for me) and is exactly the same cleaning-wise!

I just wouldn't use it if i was washing whites cause i'm always scared although it should really be fine cause the water in the machine dilutes it massively.

Hope that helps?
x

Uniscots97

Remember for cleaning the bath/sink etc you can use bubble bath/shampoo/shower gel or even soap, this is a great way to use up anything you don't like!

Have you ran out of wrapping paper? If you have any plain or patterned polythene bags, cut a sheet out of it (some you just need to cut the handles off and split down the side). You can use this like normal wrapping paper and then tie with ribbon.

Before washing your hair whether long or short, brush it. This removes any dust or debris meaning you'll need less shampoo and possibly will only need to shampoo once (if I've left mine longer than normal or if I've had a lot of hairspray in my hair then and only then do I need to wash it twice). Try this then when you shampoo your hair only use half your usual amount (wet your hands well and lather up the shampoo before putting it near your hair).

Brushing a pet? If you're brushing a pet then where you can do it outside. If this isn't possible then brush them over a wipe clean floor (means you don't need the hoover only a mop/brush), finish by using a damp rubber glove to run your hand over your pet's fur. This gets the last loose hairs off them and means they don't go straight onto your carpet.

Aril

Add combings from pets to your compost heap if you have one- less to landfill.

When going away on holiday look through your fridge before you go to see what can be frozen- eg half a can of opened cat food [just make sure you label it!] We always make sure we take all lurking veg with us and anything else that is perishable I give to my Mum and she vice versa so as little as possible is wasted. Make sure you have some bread, milk and a meal of sorts frozen for when you get back so that you don't have to shop when you're shattered. We take our own packup for the journey and stop at National Trust places en route [we're members of the Scottish NT] so that we can eat our lunch and use the facilities. If not then it's the service station car park!
Old habits die hard and when away I still take my clubcard with me and look for whoopsies. We also try to suss out where the petrol is cheaper- Asda is usually a good bet!

Arilx

hollycupcake

I was having a clear our recently and I found a huge box full of my kids' school exercise books that I'd hoarded (you know the ones that they bring home at the end of term). I realise that I can't keep them all so I went through them and kept a few of their Literacy ones etc (for the funny stories!). Then before throwing the other ones away I went through and cut out all the empty pages at the back. There were a lot of books where only the first few pages had been written in and the spare pages are now in a big pile in the drawer, ready to be used for shopping lists etc.