Lots more Sneaky Ways to save the pennies

wondercollie

London_1 said:

I made a good two litres of thick leek and tattie soup today.its cooled down and potted up in the fridge now and will do me for around five lunch times or starters for dinner over the next five days 69p 4 leeks from Aldi's three starting to sprout spuds all sliced and diced with two basic veggie stock cubes thrown in and a teaspoon of cumin and a good teaspoon of garlic pepper.

Very pleased and have costed it out at just under a pound for five decent portions. I also had a two pint rice pud cooking in my slow cooker made with 4 ozs pudding rice 4 ounces caster sugar (from my jar of blended granulated sugar0 and two pints of milk a large tin of evaporated milk one and half tins of water and topped up with ordinary milk to the two pint level. This will give me a good few portions for pudding over the next few days at a cost of around 25p a portion I'm on a roll this week Using up odds and ends and staying well clear of the supermarkets 

JackieO xx

I love leeks but not the price!

Very expensive in Canada.

ZolaBuddy

As a New Year's resolution, we keep a swear box in the kitchen, along with a large Post It note stuck to the fridge door showing a a list of swear words and the subsequent "fine"

Turns out that by the end of Feb we needed a bigger swear box  But we put the £73,50 collection towards new t-towels, bath & hand towels, bath mats and a shower mat. 

So we now have a larger swear box (an old tub of Aerial laundry capsules). I cannot say we're proud, but we have reduced our swearing just a bit 

Girlt

Not sure if this counts a sneaky way to save money but o/h couldn’t decide if to stay away this week with work or drive home every night. 

Apart from the fact I didn’t want him driving 240 miles every day, the fact that I am only having to feed myself and will just go to bed in the evening, rather than putting the heating on saves a lot of money. Also no daily packed lunches and so much less toilet roll used! Seriously I don’t know what that man does with it 😂

Brie

wondercollie said:

I love leeks but not the price!

Very expensive in Canada.

Oh!  I've never noticed!!  Shall have to look the next time I'm over that way.  Then again I think before I moved to the UK I'd never heard of them - but of course there's lots of things I'd never heard of - like courgettes.  Zucchini & eggplant & scallions, yes.  Courgettes & aubergines & spring onions, no.    Same old thing....2 countries separated by a single language!

PipneyJane

Girlt said:

Not sure if this counts a sneaky way to save money but o/h couldn’t decide if to stay away this week with work or drive home every night. 

Apart from the fact I didn’t want him driving 240 miles every day, the fact that I am only having to feed myself and will just go to bed in the evening, rather than putting the heating on saves a lot of money. Also no daily packed lunches and so much less toilet roll used! Seriously I don’t know what that man does with it 😂

As a hardened traveller for work, even I’d blanche at a 240 mile daily commute.  That’s 2 hours each way, on a good day, and it’s not safe to be done every day. Yes, I’ve done it as a day trip on multiple occasions, but those were one-off days where I’d usually arrive late at my destination, leave early and not return the next day.  (Our work day started at 8.30am and finished at 5.  I’d get to that office at 9 and leave at 3/3.30.)

Your DH will be claiming expenses, won’t he?  With mileage at 45p/mile, this week’s trip equates to £108.  Personally, I’d deduct my next tank of petrol from that and then bank the difference in a separate “car savings” account, to put towards the bills and to the eventual car replacement.  If you do a lot of miles, it adds up quite quickly.  For example, in the 3 month prior to the first Lockdown, I was doing a regular 116 mile round trip, 2-3 days a week. Applying my “one tank a week rule”, I banked £1,400 during that time.

(I learned this trick from my DH, who saved £4,500 when he was doing regular trips for work.)

- Pip

Girlt

Fortunately it’s a works van and they pay the diesel. The thought of paying all that fuel makes me come over all funny! I think it’s bad enough when I have to fill the tank on my little car and that’s only about £40. 

The travelling is part of the job and he doesn’t have a choice. He loves what he does which I guess makes it easier but sometimes the long days take their toll so I do then insist he stays away so he gets a bit more rest. 

OrkneyStar

Brie said:

wondercollie said:

I love leeks but not the price!

Very expensive in Canada.

Oh!  I've never noticed!!  Shall have to look the next time I'm over that way.  Then again I think before I moved to the UK I'd never heard of them - but of course there's lots of things I'd never heard of - like courgettes.  Zucchini & eggplant & scallions, yes.  Courgettes & aubergines & spring onions, no.    Same old thing....2 countries separated by a single language!

In some parts of Scotland spring snions/scallions are called syboes (pronounced Sybies). I was also surprised I went to the US and there was such a variety of courgettes - I had a lovely pasta dish in a pizza/pasta place in San Antonio, with yellow courgettes. I think red/green/yellow peppers have other names too, capsicum (Australia) and Bell Pepper (US or Australia). 

Siebrie

annieb64 said:

I used to make a harlequin jam tart to use up all the oddments of jam. Lovely with custard.

Now, you see, that makes actual sense! I have a cookbook which has a recipe for harlequin tart, but it has you making all the small portions of preserve/jams, and it was just way too timeconsuming, expensive and fiddly to even try. Somehow, it never even entered my mind to use ready-made So, thank you!

Broomstick

I've got a sneaky way to save money which has become so sneaky in my life that I don't think of it as a money saving trick, but it obviously is and it works for me.

I keep a small spreadsheet of all non-food things that I would like to buy.  Nowadays it's purely practical stuff although it could be used for treats too.  Column 1 is the name of the month, column 2 is the item, column 3 is my justification of why I want to buy it, column 4 is the best price I can find for it and where.  It really helps me to have to write down my reason for wanting to get it.

Then, I forbid myself to buy it until (at least) a month has passed and I make myself muddle through until then.  I've never had an emergency where the purchase has had to happen straight away.  When I do this, most of the time I realise that I don't need to buy the item anyway or that I've found a satisfactory workaround. 

I also use my Amazon basket but rarely for buying!  I love books and, if  I find something I want to read, I look it up on Amazon put it in my basket and then move it to 'save for later'.  It means that I always know where to find my reading list and I use it when searching our library's paper and audio books to see if it's available for free.  

maryb

It's quite interesting how stuff stays in my save for later basket. Shows I didn't need it after all. However I also use the wish list feature for lists of books as you can have different lists for different purposes and I find it easier to see the wood for the trees that way