Spending money to save money?

armchairexpert

Apologies if I'm duplicating a running thread. I did search, I promise!

Anyway. I do pretty well with OS saving but I know there's a lot more I could do. The problem is, most of them involve quite a lot of money on an initial set-up. And I do hate a false economy.

It just isn't as simple as "a breadmaker saves you [price of bought bread - price of HM bread]" when you factor in the price of the machine, running costs, etc.

So, could you tell me please, which of these things sound like good investments, and which are a false economy in your opinion?

1) Chest/separate freezer. I like cooking, I already batch cook, and I'm really limited by our very small freezer. With a chest freezer I could buy a half-a-cow a couple of times a year, which cuts down on price per kilo considerably, and also buy bulk other things and do huge batch cooks, generally improve efficiency. But they started at around $400 (I'm in Australia), and then there's the running costs in electricity. Can I really recoup that outlay within a year?
2) Also, more batch cooking equals a LOT more freezer safe food containers. Those things aren't cheap.
3) Vegetable beds. Timber, soil, fertiliser, seeds, nets, slug repellent, possum-b-gone (this does not actually exist), it's not free but is it worth it?
4) Breadmaker. We go through two big bought loaves a week, but my previous experience of HM bread is that it goes stale a lot faster because of the lack of preservatives, so I have to make it almost daily; that plus the initial outlay of the maker plus the running costs: savings?

There are loads more - sewing machine for doing my own mending, double glazing v increasing heating/cooling bills, please jump in with any others, but the above are the ones I'm thinking about at the moment because of the Grocery Challenge.

Softstuff

Hi Armchairexpert,
I'm in Australia too, so can give a local view on some bits.

1. I have a bar-fridge and a separate freezer of the same size (Westinghouse). We paid under $300 for it delivered. I have probably recouped that a few times over including running costs this year - I buy chicken and meat when it's 40% off or less (I wouldn't buy half a cow as some cuts we don't eat a lot), I buy veg when it's cheap, blanch and freeze it. At the moment I have an entire drawer full of frozen cubed mango and frozen bananas.... I got a tray of 30 mangoes for $10 and about 15kg of bananas for $5!

I bake cookies, muffins etc in one big go and freeze those in bags. I buy reduced bread, croissants etc and freeze those.

2) I have the decor freezer containers. They're very often half proce at Big W, Coles or Woolies, I've bought mine bit by bit there. I don't "batch cook" now as much as I used to, I tend to cook about 4 portions of what we're having for dinner if it's something like special fried rice or pasta, and then 2 portions go in the freezer for lunches. This way we never buy lunch. My containers have been working hard for 5 years now, I reckon they'll be good another 15 at least!

3) I can't grow food here, we're in a unit with no available sunny space (believe me I've tried). Some things here grow so easily and prolifically you'd be silly not to plant them if you have space - beans, zucchini, pumpkins. My MIL grows the lot, the biggest expense is effort. You can make your own compost for nothing, make beds from used pallets or junk wood and dig dig dig! Recycle water then from the shower (bucket in the bottom), washing up (washing up bowl) and water it for free.

4) Had a breadmaker briefly, got along better doing my own by hand, but haven't done either for a long while. We like a nice seedy nutty loaf and when they're often 2 for $5 at coles, or if you go to brumbys as they close they bag them up and then they're $2 a bag or 3 bags for $5! They freeze well and we take them out of the freezer bit by bit. By the time you factor in the faff and heat of doing your own, not worth it in my opinion.

Most mending you can do by hand. I have a sewing machine but only get it out for huge jobs like curtaining. Things like altering pants, hemming etc I do by hand.

We heat a bit in winter, cool a bit in summer. Our unit isn't well insulated and there's nothing we can do about that. Mostly we try and do sensible things like wear more clothes and use hot water bottles in winter, ventilate well in summer. Our bills are less than our single upstairs neighbour, but we're economical with use. We got rid of the tumble drier that was here when we moved in and use an airer to dry clothes, we dry towels after use with a little rack over the hot water heater.

I hope that was a little help, but it's just what I've found.

tori.k

Im our house the chest freezer is my best friend, as it means no waste if things like leftovers are not going to be eaten then in it goes for another day, on the otherhand I freecycled the breadmaker i just didn't use it i prefer to make by hand and shop buy reduced bread which i freeze but then we are not huge bread eaters to start.

best investment was a second hand food slicer this has paid for itself times over, it's a crafty way of getting meat & cheese to go further and halved my meat bill

midnightraven3

our 2nd freezer? worth its weight in gold
batch cooking & lots of veg in there
saves a lot of time, and money

i freeze "meal" type things in single portions in bags
flat on a tray, then put into an ice cream box

for instance, lets say spag bol
i only freeze the "bol" part
no point storing spaghetti in the freezer
we have 3 student children, in and out at various times, so i know how many is in for dinner, thats how many bags i take out that day
works brilliantly for us

i have raised beds, but i grow in any available space
pallet herb gardens against the fence (they do look pretty and free!) gardening is as cheap or expensive as you want it to be, growing herbs, salad leaves and tomatoes not only saves money but its lovely to go outside and "pick your dinner"
grow peas in any tub you have, crowd them and pick pea tops for salad and the leaves and peas make lush soup, costs pence to plant
strawberries will come each year
and i have pounds of fruit each year from my poundland canes

sorry, i seem to be rambling about gardening now

breadmaker? i use mine ever day
for 2 loaves a week, i probably wouldnt bother

babyshoes

Do you have a freecycle / freegle group in your area? That and ebay are good for items like freezers, bread makers, sewing machines etc. I see such items come up occasionally on our freegle group, so if you can be patient it is worth it, but if not look on ebay for collection only listings in your area.

Our chest freezer came off ebay and cost us around £100 about 3-4 years back, so the cost is spread over the years and has probably saved us quite a lot more than it cost as we almost never buy full-price meat now - I just look at the reduced section in the supermarket and buy whatever I know we can use, then shove it in the freezer until it's wanted. The freezer still works fine though one of the little lights on the front seems to have an intermittent fault. You will often find things that are still perfectly functional but are being sold either because they no longer look as good or the owner is upgrading.

Sambucus_Nigra

Growing veg - you don't actually need timber, soil, fertiliser, slug repellent etc - just some soil and compost and trays to start off stuff. For example - I buy seed potatoes, bung them in upturned turf beds, harvest them and each seed potato [at 18p each, sometimes cheaper than buying eating potatoes] gives me the equivalent of 2-3 bags of potatoes from supermarkets, worth about £2-4. Yes, it's more work but then I don't watch TV so have all evening spare during the summer to do gardening.

I bought 5 cloves of local grown garlic 4 years ago and planted them and have never bought garlic since; still have some of last year's harvest that I'm using now. I whizz it in white wine vinegar and have jars of lazy garlic ready all year round. The 5 cloves were 20p each.

If I had space for a small chest freezer I'd definitely have one.

armchairexpert

Ooh, Softstuff, the frozen ripe fruit idea is very tempting. My kids would die of joy if we had a freezer full of frozen mangoes. Okay, that's getting closer to selling me on that one. For some reason I'd forgotten about bulk buying and freezing fruit and veg, was just thinking about batch cooking but you're right, the possibilities are endless.

Midnightraven, Sambuca, I think I'm not not very good at gardening. Or, really, I just don't have the time at the moment (I have a three year old and a baby and I work OOH). The birds and possums get all our fruit and pull our seedlings out of the ground in one night, and netting only does so much, so I'm a bit discouraged. But I'll have another stab at it, thanks for the inspiration.

Our freecycle is a bit rubbish, but I'll definitely check out the local secondhand markets for equipment.

You can see what I'm asking in a broad sense, though, can't you? It'd be very easy to go right, I'm serious about saving money, I'll need to drop several hundred pounds on a breadmaker and a whizzy state of the art freezer and a new sewing machine and a greenhouse and some chickens in a luxury coop, that'll definitely help me pay the mortgage off faster!

culpepper

we have a breadmaker machine.
I do a loaf about every 2nd day . They are shorter in length than a large loaf from the shop but more fulfilling so you find you don't eat as many slices.
A loaf works out around 25 pence including the electricity to bake it.
We do a very basic recipe of yeast,flour and water as we don't add milk,eggs,sugar or salt to ours.

We grow fruit and veg in the spring and summer and I have a dehydrator to dry off surplus veg .

I do have a sewing machine but it only really gets used for mending, I bought one with a walking foot so that I could mend OH's motorcycle leathers and that has been handy a few times over the years and saved money over buying new leathers or trying to find someone who would mend them.

We have a food slicer that I bought at a boot fair. It is hand cranked but works perfectly and means we can buy meat and slice it thinly and also use it to slice the HM loaves evenly.

lushlifesaver

If I had the space and the money I would invest in a chest freezer quicker than a heartbeat! I would then be able to shop monthly rather than weekly.

Having said that our fridge-freezer may well be on the way out in which case we will be investing in a slightly larger American style one which will give us/me plenty of storage space whilst its just the two of us. Currently we have 3 sections in ours and one is meat, one is yorkshire puds and roast potatoes and mixed veg and the other draw is occupied by frozen soup (mine as OH won't eat it) cheese (portioned as I'm following SW) other frozen meal-y bits (mine again) and ice cream (OH's)

snowleopard61

Good thread, I often wonder about things like this, especially the breadmaker issue. It wouldn't save me money as I always buy such cheap bread (Basics or Aldi wholemeal at around 50p – sadly I hardly ever seem to find substantially reduced better quality loaves) but it might make nicer bread affordable.

If you want to save on freezer containers, don't forget that you can line a container with a freezer bag, pour in the contents (once completely cold), seal the bag and freeze it while still in the container, then remove once frozen. That way you get to keep your container in use and the filled bag should have taken on a fairly stackable shape. Obviously this doesn’t work for layered things like shepherd’s pie, crumbles or lasagne though! - although it's easy to freeze the constituent parts.

zzzLazyDaisy

I second freecycle for a freezer. I got my second freezer from freecycle - practically brand new - when a couple set up home together and merged two household into one. My friend batch cooks for me (I am disabled) and it has been a complete godsend!