Back to basics, squeezing the pennies!

nancmat

Hi, i'm not sure how old your child is but is he at the potty training stage to save on nappies? Is your child at nursery, don't they feed him I pay a tiny bit extra & my daughter gets all 3 home cooked meals a day there plus snacks.

camNolliesMUMMY

Do you have a lidl lose by? I've just picked up 4+ nappies which has 50 nappies inside on offer for £4.19 a pack and I buy thir wipes at 80p which are lot thicker than the asda sp! But if your happy with them that's good.
Possibly think about sp or value nappies they are ok £1.41 a pack!!! Worth a try? I used tem for day time use and switched to normal nappies in he evening just Incase any leeks happen

I use my chopper to turn our food into babies food.
Do you hav a slow cooker? If not ask around someone may have one lurking in the back of ther cupboard collecting dust.

I make everything in mine....well 95% of our food as it saves us on our gas cooking and is loads cheaper to run.
I cook the following......
Jacket spuds.....10mins in microwave then put a lil oil in the bottom of sc and toss potatoes in them and serve when hungry.
Chilli- I add more chilli powder once dished baby's out.
Spag Bol
Lasagne
Cottage pie
Shepherds pie
Curries-various
Curried goat-rice made in microwave
Jerk chicken in jerk sauce
Pasta sort of bake lol
Whole Sunday past hicken
Gammon joints
Pork joints
Meatloaf
Kebab meat
Paprika chicken
Sausage casserole
Crickey I could go on.....

Washing clothes- have you tried cheap shampoo in the bath? I used this when our washer broke own and had ran out of powder.

All put a word out and eep an eye on gumtree/facebook selling pages and even eBay for a washer if you can.

Good luck!!! And if you want anymore Info from me feel free to pm me.

McCalls

Hi
Are you getting the 2 year early education fund for your little one? This involves 15 hours of free nursery education if you're not earning/ or are earning below a certain threshold. It's in addition to the 3 year fund. Ring your local children's centre for further information. They will provide snacks/lunch for little one usually.

Also, your local children's centre sometimes distribute food parcels which might help you along? Don't forget to pick up free vitamins from there too if you're getting your healthy start vouchers.

LolaLemon

When I was at uni, I was also financially at my lowest. I had very little money to buy food after paying bills and travel expensise, and this was only 2/3 years ago.
We survived on breakfast cereals/porridge/ready break, I made son packed lunches for at nursery, he was in them from 9.15 - 6pm mon - Friday .
Boiled eggs, some veg, a little treat and some fruit. At home we lived on eggs or pasta all with veg. Some times porridge (don't know if its a scottish thing, an old thing or a poor thing, but my nana used to have porridge for dinner sometimes, altho she had hers with salt.. )
I had to provide the 2 nurseries with a carton or 2 of milk each per week (goats milk, he is allergic to cows) that was where the bulk of my food money went, on milk yogurts n cheese each week. I got barely any help, childcare given via bursery was £1200, not bad, but I paid £420 every 4 weeks to the cheapest child care facility, which also has got one of the best ratings thankfully.
Pasta, I bought and still buy the big massive bags that tesco do on offer for around £3. Learned to make my own sauce , made sauce firs then made pasta as I only had one working ring. Id buy reduced meat, or put a few pounds away each week so I could go to butcher and get mince (lamb,pork,turkey whatever of the three was cheapest) then he would seperate into smaller amounts 'to fit in the freezer' . Id brown this smaller amount and add oats to bulk it out, use lots of carrots, onions and anything else I had then cook it for spag bol, etc..
Scrambled eggs, omlete, omlete is surprisingly filling with some cheese n veg...

I agree with the slow cooker. Made a few caseroles tha I could then freeze for later.

Check out he £7 a week thread n here, has some great ideas..

Start encouraging using the toilet, put lo on first thing in the morning and last thing at night, for about 5 mins, so they get used to sitting on one and then its not so scary. Go nappy free in the house, for outside wear pants then a nappy, so any accidents are contained.

My sink got blocked a few years back, n I took the clothes in a shower with me, let them get wet, a little soap gave them a good rub then I got washed and let the water wash over them then once my hair was washed I then started rinsing the m properly, had a basin for when I had rinsed a item, into the basin it went. Worst thing I found washing was jeans.

Make ur own soap powder, soap flakes, half that amount with soda crysals and half that amount with borax.. costs around £3.50 for the three items. Mix what u have in a glass jar (old sauce jar) ad use 1 or 2 tea spoons full per load.

bluebag

When I was really, really skint, I used cheapo nappies in the day and a better quality one at night.