Great 'Embarrassing MoneySaving tips' Hunt

lanavdt

I work in a nursery and have been known to go into travel agents and ask for brochures for the role play area, we also reuse toy and craft catalogs we receive in the paper drawers for the children to cut up/ to be inspired by.
My family also reuse gift bags, one tha I gave to my mum last year came back to me last weekend containing a prize for the raffle at work. I got it on my staff night out and the tags still not been written on. Kinda hoping I might see it again one day...

oldnewhand

I follow many of these practices with pride in not being wasteful. I'm not organised enough to remember to save the compost activator until it's too late tho'! I always empty my vacuum cleaner into the compost as suggested by Mr Dyson; it's reassuring to know if I've sucked up a gold earring I'll find it next time I spread the compost.
My Christmas cake recipe passed on from my mum probably influenced by war time rationing advocates substituting 2 tablespoonsful vinegar for 2 of the 4 eggs it uses. I've done this with no ill effect to the flavour.

Jenna_Appleseed

tenuissent wrote: »

A friend sends me homemade cards each Christmas, always with a strange padded circle in the middle of the decorations. Asked her once how she made this - dried out tea bags......

sounds like they misunderstood making cards with teabag folding

InaPickle

Slinky wrote: »

Rather than putting them in separate bags, why not lay them out on a plastic chopping board, stick it in the freezer, when they have frozen you can take them off the board and stick them all in one bag as once frozen they wont stick together.

We do this with lemon slices for my G&T - chop a lemon up, lay all the bits flat on a chopping board, freeze them then bag up once frozen. No need to defrost when using!

Slinky, that's a genuinely GENIUS idea - thanks and very well done! :j :T

raddyantic

I saw a bloke on a train in the morning the other day drinking coffee from a jam jar - I don't know if he was trying to be all environmental and save money or was just mental! There's a fine line if you're in public!

*Jelly_Tots*

Some of these ideas are great and some of them are just depressing lol !! I suppose there's a fine line between moneysaving and eccentricity. I grew up with an extreme-money-saving parent (euphemism) and some of these tips bring back painful memories lol.

apple_mint

JFD10 wrote: »

My mum has recently started needing to catch the train to work for her job and has discovered the joys of reading the Metro every morning.

After she left for work last week, I wandered down to the train station to pick up a few copies and used them to wrap up her presents! She thought it was a wonderful idea when she saw them under the tree after getting home!

By extending to the rest of the family, I haven't had to buy any wrapping paper at all this year

We are using copies of the local paper this year. I normally use brown paper, string (sometimes green garden twine) and little handmade shaped card gift tags for our presents. On the one's I sent to my family I drew little snowflakes on the brown paper to make them more 'Christmassy'. However, we have run out of brown paper and can't get out to get some more due to the weather. OH and I are therefore going to wrap our presents to each other in newspaper, red wool (in place of the string) and make little holly shaped gift tags. We have a little pile of local papers I've been saving, and he doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to pinch all the pages with the local cartoon - cut the cartoon out and stick them to the front of his parcel. The winter weather one's have been quite funny lately. I'm going to save the cartoons up through the year next year.

Not embarrassing - I have no qualms about not spending money on something that only ends up in the recycling bin.

hvd201

I have been known to buy gifts from eBay cheaply because they are unboxed (but brand new) and then buy the original retailer's gift box cheaply so it looks like it was bought from the shop - like this year I picked up a Penhaligon's travel wallet for £19, original Penhaligon's gift box for £4 and the shop price was about £160 or something outrageous. Not embarrassing to mention to strangers on an internet forum, but embarrassing if the person I gift it to finds out.
I find myself making an effort to hide from people the origin of their gift if I bought it from eBay, I know it doesn't really matter but there is something nice about thinking you were completely spoilt and that someone splashed out on your gift.

jaydax

When my cousin first got married she couldn't afford curtains and went round the house at night with an electric kettle steaming up the windows.

Ebenezer_Screwj

I'm not embarrassed about this but I guess some people might be.

HOW TO SEND CHRISTMAS CARDS FOR NOTHING
1. Obtain large supply of complimentary cards advertising a large corporate organisation
2. Collect all the postage stamps which escape franking from large corporate organisation
3. Remove by soaking and paste onto new mail (glue stick from large corporate organisation)
4. Write your greeting with pen from large corporate organisation
5. Prepare mailing labels (obtained from large corporate organisation)
6. Save shoe leather when walking to mail box by wearing safety shoes provided by former employer
TOTAL COST : ZERO
Finally - don’t forget to print out the labels at work to save ink.
Better still, get someone else to do it !