Fundamental principles of saving money

katieowl_2

I think if you work ALL the principles together there are substantial savings to be made

Amy Dacyzyn's Tightwad gazette I love for her mindset....once you apply her principals to everything it's fantastic. Cost per wear is one of my favourites, something good quality you wear forever (but bought in a sale for preference!) is a fabulous bargain even if it cost £100 because if you wear it a 1000 times CPW is 1p a wear, a piece of tat from primani that never comes of the hanger because it makes your bum look a funny shape, never was and never will be worth the £8 you paid for it = £8 cpw.

Knowing the price for a kilo of something is a must...because often the bargains are to be had by carefully checking. I often find the cheese is cheaper on the deli counter in Mr T. A cheese on 'special offer' may be £4.50 a kilo...where as even the family packs of basics are around the £6 mark. I've seen veg too, where packed bags of value stuff, are actually cheaper per kilo than the loose stuff which we are expecting to be cheaper, so you really DO have to check, use the scales and take a calculator if you need too. Use those scales too, to check the weights of bagged stuff that are sold per item, get the biggest blooming cabbage they have!!!

Also once you have a price roughly fixed in your head, you can spot a real bargain when they come up!

Squashed boxes...non food items? No brainer!


Kate

dolly84

thriftwizard wrote: »

Nodding agreement here; I was also brought up in a thrifty household! Though sadly I rebelled and lost my way in my late teens & twenties; it took struggling with a soaring mortgage (remember 15%, anyone?) to remember how it's done!

If any of you have read The Tightwad Gazette she recommends some sound ideas like keeping a price book so you know a good deal when you see it. It's very easy to be fooled by the BOGOFs and Buy-Two-Get-One-Half-Price kind of offers & not see that sometimes they're hardly bargains at all, but a covert way of putting prices up. I know we can use price comparison sites now, but how many of us can use them when we're actually out there trawling the aisles? So keep a note of current best prices for things you will actually use. And don't buy stuff unless you WILL use it; it's not a bargain if it explodes at the back of your shelves 15 years later.

I too remember the 15% interest rate. People who didn't have a mortgage then look at me like I am making it up when I tell them. Obviously house prices were less but still we had hardly a penny to our name at the time.

The cost per wear idea is a good one. For many years I have worked out how many hours I would need to work to pay for whatever it is i am looking at and often that item becomes less appealing.

Austin_Allegro

dolly84 wrote: »

I too remember the 15% interest rate. People who didn't have a mortgage then look at me like I am making it up when I tell them. Obviously house prices were less but still we had hardly a penny to our name at the time.

The cost per wear idea is a good one. For many years I have worked out how many hours I would need to work to pay for whatever it is i am looking at and often that item becomes less appealing.

Cost per wear is a must when buying clothes. Before buying clothes I calculate roughly how long the garment will last and how often I will wear it. I then calculate how much money would I have to put in a jar every time I wear it. The results can be shocking :rotfl:

I did however use this method to justify to my wife my spending of a huge amount on a Harris Tweed jacket recently. I fully intend to wear it most days for at least twenty years however, (if I should be spared) The tailor told me that jackets like that get brought back to him every ten years or so...just for relining!

Ben84

A great deal of retail profit is from assembling things for consumers, or simply marketing something for a specific purpose.

Well, sometimes I do value this service. Other times I realise it's very easy to make or do something myself.

So, I would always try to make or do something I use at least once before deciding I should buy it. Well, within reason. I'm never going to try to make a mobile phone, that's just something you have to shop around for and buy carefully so you'll want to keep it a good while. However, I will try to make just about any food item (look for easy sounding recipes) and will try simple things for cleaning the house, like borax or soda crystals before I buy something special for the task. Try to simplify rather than complicate things. Look for the easiest solution to things. Often items that will work are already somewhere in the house, so I have no need to go out and buy more stuff. If I'm looking for a recipe, I google it with the word 'easy' or 'simple' in the search. Aside from saving time and effort, simpler recipes in my experience tend to work better as they have less steps and less places and ways to go wrong.

Justamum

amcg100 wrote: »

I have two bleach spray bottles, and one toilet bleach bottle, but I have not bought a bleach product in nearly a decade. This is because I bought a large quantity of strong bleach ( unbranded) and water it down to an appropriate strength. Strong for the toilet and weak for the spray bottles.

Bleach breaks down so I doubt what you have got is still viable after 10 years. One year, tops.

amcg100

What I meant was that I had not bought a bleach product. This means spray bottles, bleach wipes fancy bottles for toilet, or other products that contain only bleach.

The bleach I buy in bulk is purchased more frequently.

amcg100

Austin_Allegro wrote: »

My personal philosophy on saving money can be summarised in the following quotes:

1. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure £19/19/6, result happiness. Annual income £20, annual expenditure £20/-/6, result misery (ie, live below your means)
2. Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
3. A penny saved is a penny earned.
4. Every mickle maks a muckle
5. Penny wise is pound foolish.
6. Don't spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar.

Number 2 - Spot on
Number 3 - Spot on
Number 4 - should be It takes' Mony a Mickle to Mak a Muckle' - meaning that it takes a lot of small things to make one large one.
Number 5 - This kind of contradicts number 2, but it has great meaning all on its own - Basically, it is pointing out that there is little point in toiling to save ' Mony Mickles' if when it comes to a major purchase, you rush in and waste your ' Muckles'

There is one other as well - Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves

amcg100

amcg100 wrote: »

Yes, and I have even seen grated cheese cheaper per Kg than block cheese ( same brand ) . The point is that we need to check the price per Kg. Although the price per Kg is displayed at point of sale, when there is a bogof, this is not taken into account. With bogofs you still need a calculator or a good arithmetical brain.

Absolutely, there is a lot of cheesy people pointing out that the price of grated or sliced cheese is sometimes cheaper than block.

I was astonished to watch a man in a supermarket last year pick up a bottle of Smirnoff ( 70 CL ) at £17.99, when right beside it were Litres of Smirnoff at £15. There was a big sign advertising the litres attached to the shelf which covered the area housing the two sizes of bottle. Clearly designed to confuse.

maman

Thanks OP. I consider myself indoctrinated.;)

calleyw

I agree with Katieowl not just on cost per wear but cost per use.

I have recently spent £38 on 3 saucepans yes expensive but copper bottomed with a 10 year guarantee. They will be used most days for at least the next 10 years.

My mattress cost me £300 but that works out to £30 a year for a decent nights sleep.

It is not always about buying the cheapest to be frugal. It is about buying the best that you can afford and will last. And is value for money

Like my cowboy boots that are 19 years old paid £75 for them and they are about to go and be re-heeled again.

Yours

Calley